Protein regulates movement of mitochondria in b...(y while others are moving down the arms ...)

Date:6/15/2009

y while others are moving down the arms of the cell to assume their proper position. Additionally, for reasons not completely understood, at any given time about half of the mobile mitochondria in the neuron are in the process of returning to the cell body perhaps to be recycled or replenished in some form.

Rempe and his colleagues have discovered a protein that plays a critical role in regulating the movement or transport of mitochondria in neuron cells. The protein, which they dubbed hypoxia upregulated mitochondrial movement regulator (HUMMR), is produced in a state of low oxygen called hypoxia. HUMMR is induced by another protein called hypoxic inducible factor 1 alpha (HIF-1) which is responsible for triggering several processes in the cell that help it function in a low oxygen environment.

The primary role of HUMMR is to regulate the proper transport and distribution of mitochondria throughout the cell, essentially ensuring that they are in the correct position. One of the ways that the University of Rochester team was able to determine this is that when HUMMR was expressed at lower than normal levels, they observed that a greater number of the mitochondria began to abandon their posts along the cell's dendrites and axon and return to the cell body proper.

Understanding the mechanisms that regulate the movement of mitochondria may help scientists identify how the brain's cells ward off and potentially repair damage. An example is the role that mitochondria play as a calcium buffer. One of the mitochondria's functions is to help control the concentration of calcium in the cell, which the organelles can rapidly absorb and store. This capacity is important, particularly in instances when calcium levels in the cell spike during a stroke, a condition which contributes a cascading series of events that ultimately lead to a state called excitotoxicity and cell death.

One of the keys to identifying the function of H
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Contact: Mark Michaud mark_michaud@urmc.rochester.edu 585-273-4790 University of Rochester Medical Center Source:Eurekalert

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