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Updated: Jul 13, 2026

Measurement of Protein Import Capacity of Skeletal Muscle Mitochondria
Published on: January 7, 2022
Diverse mechanisms and machineries for import of mitochondrial proteins
Dusanka Milenkovic1, Judith Müller, Diana Stojanovski
1Institut für Biochemie und Molekularbiologie, Zentrum für Biochemie und Molekulare Zellforschung, Universität Freiburg, Hermann-Herder-Strasse 7, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany.
Abstract:
Mitochondria are ubiquitous organelles that play an essential role in energy conversion and biosynthetic pathways in eukaryotic cells. Most mitochondrial proteins must be imported from the cytosol and sorted into one of the four mitochondrial subcompartments, the outer membrane, the intermembrane space, the inner membrane and the matrix. Studies in recent years revealed a remarkable diversity of mechanisms and machineries that are required for the import of proteins into mitochondria. At least four different pathways for the sorting and assembly of nuclear-encoded mitochondrial proteins have been identified.
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