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Updated: Apr 1, 2026

Author Spotlight: Two-Step Tag-Free Isolation of Mitochondria for Improved Protein Discovery and Quantification
Published on: June 2, 2023
MitoCarta2.0: an updated inventory of mammalian mitochondrial proteins
Sarah E Calvo1, Karl R Clauser2, Vamsi K Mootha3
1Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Department of Molecular Biology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA 02114, USA Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA 02141, USA Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA vamsi@hms.harvard.edu.
Abstract:
Mitochondria are complex organelles that house essential pathways involved in energy metabolism, ion homeostasis, signalling and apoptosis. To understand mitochondrial pathways in health and disease, it is crucial to have an accurate inventory of the organelle's protein components. In 2008, we made substantial progress toward this goal by performing in-depth mass spectrometry of mitochondria from 14 organs, epitope tagging/microscopy and Bayesian integration to assemble MitoCarta (www.broadinstitute.org/pubs/MitoCarta): an inventory of genes encoding mitochondrial-localized proteins and their expression across 14 mouse tissues. Using the same strategy we have now reconstructed this inventory separately for human and for mouse based on (i) improved gene transcript models, (ii) updated literature curation, including results from proteomic analyses of mitochondrial sub-compartments, (iii) improved homology mapping and (iv) updated versions of all seven original data sets. The updated human MitoCarta2.0 consists of 1158 human genes, including 918 genes in the original inventory as well as 240 additional genes. The updated mouse MitoCarta2.0 consists of 1158 genes, including 967 genes in the original inventory plus 191 additional genes. The improved MitoCarta 2.0 inventory provides a molecular framework for system-level analysis of mammalian mitochondria.
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