Ruiz-Ramírez A, Barrios-Maya MA, López-Acosta O, Molina-Ortiz D, El-Hafidi M. Cytochrome c release from rat liver mitochondria is compromised by increased saturated cardiolipin species induced by sucrose feeding. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab 309: E777–E786, 2015. First published September 8, 2015; doi:10.1152/ajpendo.00617.2014.—Cytochrome c release from mitochondria has been described to be r...

In a previous work, we have shown that a spatially localized transmembrane pH gradient, produced by acid micro-injection near the external side of cardiolipin-containing giant unilamellar vesicles, leads to the formation of tubules that retract after the dissipation of this gradient. These tubules have morphologies similar to mitochondrial cristae. The tubulation effect is attributable to direc...

Anionic lipids play a variety of key roles in membrane function, including functional and structural effects on respiratory complexes. However, little is known about the molecular basis of these lipid-protein interactions. In this study, NarGHI, an anaerobic respiratory complex of Escherichia coli, has been used to investigate the relations in between membrane-bound proteins with phospholipids....

The tafazzin gene encodes a phospholipid-lysophospholipid transacylase involved in cardiolipin metabolism, but it is not known why it forms multiple transcripts as a result of alternative splicing. Here we studied the intracellular localization, enzymatic activity, and metabolic function of four isoforms of human tafazzin and three isoforms of Drosophila tafazzin upon expression in different ma...

In eukaryotic cells, CLS (cardiolipin synthase) is involved in the final step of cardiolipin synthesis by catalysing the transfer of a phosphatidyl residue from CDP-DAG (diacylglycerol) to PG (phosphatidylglycerol). Despite an important role of cardiolipin in regulating mitochondrial function, a gene encoding the mammalian CLS has not been identified so far. We report in the present study the i...

Since the original report of the isolation of cardiolipin (I), the usefulness of this substance in serodiagnostic tests for syphilis has been demonstrated (2-5). In this laboratory an antigen consisting of a mixture of cardiolipin, lecithin, and cholesterol (4) is now in routine use in complement fixation tests for evidence of syphilis (6). It was therefore important to devise more efficient an...

Cytochrome c release from mitochondria has been described to be related to reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation. With ROS generation being increased in fatty liver from sucrose-fed (SF) rats, we hypothesized that cytochrome c release might be positively associated with H2O2 generation from SF mitochondria. Surprisingly, cytochrome c release from mitochondria of SF liver was found to be sign...

Phosphatidyl inositol and a cardiolipin-like phospholipid survive the autolysis which is induced in yeast by treating it with toluene, whereas other phospholipids are extensively degraded. Lipid from autolyzed yeast was suspended in isopropanol to extract lecithin and neutral lipid. The insoluble phosphatidyl inositol and cardiolipin were then separated by chromatography on silicic acid.

The Nlrp3 inflammasome is a key controller of the proinflammatory cytokine IL-1β. Iyer and colleagues (2013) demonstrate that Nlrp3 activators promote an interaction between cardiolipin in mitochondria and Nlrp3. Cardiolipin is thus a hydrophobic danger signal that, upon translocation to the outer mitochondrial membrane, activates Nlrp3, promoting inflammation.