Isolation of Mitochondria From Yeast to Estimate Mitochondrial Pools of Inorganic Phosphate

Mitochondria are dynamic organelles with essential roles in energetics and metabolism. Several metabolites are common to both the cytosolic and mitochondrial fractions of the cell. The compartmentalization of metabolites within the mitochondria allows specialized uses for mitochondrial metabolism. Inorganic phosphate (Pi) is one such critical metabolite required for ATP synthesis, via glycolysis and mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation. Estimating total cellular Pi levels cannot distinguish the distribution of Pi pools across different cellular compartments, such as the cytosol and mitochondria, and therefore separate the contributions made toward glycolysis or other cytosolic metabolic processes vs. mitochondrial outputs. Quantifying Pi pools in mitochondria can therefore be very useful toward understanding mitochondrial metabolism and phosphate homeostasis. Here, we describe a protocol for the fairly rapid, efficient isolation of mitochondria from Saccharomyces cerevisiae by immunoprecipitation for quantitative estimation of mitochondrial and cytosolic Pi pools. This method utilizes magnetic beads to capture FLAG-tagged mitochondria (Tom20-FLAG) from homogenized cell lysates. This method provides a valuable tool to investigate changes in mitochondrial phosphate dynamics. Additionally, this protocol can be coupled with LC-MS approaches to quantitatively estimate mitochondrial metabolites and proteins and can be similarly used to assess other metabolite pools that are partitioned between the cytosol and mitochondria. Key features • This protocol describes how to isolate mitochondria from Saccharomyces cerevisiae for quantitative estimation of inorganic phosphate or other metabolites. • Mitochondria are efficiently isolated by immunoprecipitation using magnetic beads, bypassing the need for time-consuming density-based centrifugation. • This method can be integrated into LC-MS-based workflows to quantify mitochondrial metabolites and proteins.