Objective (s) Porin is a mitochondrial outer membrane channel, which usually functions as the pathway for the movement of various substances in and out of the mitochondria and is considered to be a component of the permeability transition (PT) pore complex that plays a role in the PT. We addressed the hypothesis that porin interacts with other mitochondrial proteins after ischemic injury. Mater...

6- Mercaptopurine (6-MP) is widely used in clinic as an immunosuppressive for treatment of acute lymphocytic leukemia, Crohn's disease, and ulcerative colitis with documented unpredictable hepatotoxicity. The potential molecular cytotoxic mechanisms of 6-MP against isolated rat hepatocytes were searched in this study using “Accelerated Cytotoxicity Mechanism Screening (ACMS)” techniques. The co...

Mitochondrial permeability transition, due to opening of the permeability transition pore (PTP), is triggered by Ca2+ in conjunction with an inducing agent such as phosphate. However, incubation of rat liver mitochondria in the presence of low micromolar concentrations of Ca2+ and millimolar concentrations of phosphate is known to also cause net efflux of matrix adenine nucleotides via the ATP-...

Heart mitochondria from heterozygous (Sod2(-/+)) knockout mice have a 50% reduction in manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) activity. The decrease in MnSOD activity was associated with increased mitochondrial oxidative damage as demonstrated by a decrease in the activities of iron sulfhydryl proteins sensitive to oxygen stress (aconitase and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide-oxidoredu...

Lee, Wing-Kee, and Frank Thévenod. A role for mitochondrial aquaporins in cellular life-and-death decisions? Am J Physiol Cell Physiol 291: C195–C202, 2006; doi:10.1152/ajpcell.00641.2005.—Mitochondria dominate the process of life-and-death decisions of the cell. Continuous generation of ATP is essential for cell sustenance, but, on the other hand, mitochondria play a central role in the orches...

The mitochondrial permeability transition (PT) is a permeability increase of the inner mitochondrial membrane mediated by a channel, the permeability transition pore (PTP). After a brief historical introduction, we cover the key regulatory features of the PTP and provide a critical assessment of putative protein components that have been tested by genetic analysis. The discovery that under cond...

Mitochondria from the embryos of brine shrimp (Artemia franciscana) do not undergo Ca(2+)-induced permeability transition in the presence of a profound Ca(2+) uptake capacity. Furthermore, this crustacean is the only organism known to exhibit bongkrekate-insensitive mitochondrial adenine nucleotide exchange, prompting the conjecture that refractoriness to bongkrekate and absence of Ca(2+)-induc...

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) with endogenous protoporphyrin IX derived from 5-aminolevulinic acid or its derivatives has been established for treatments of several premalignancies and malignancies; however, the mechanism of the modality is not fully elucidated. The mitochondrial permeability transition pore consists mainly of the mitochondrial outer membrane voltage-dependent anion channel and th...

B cell antigen receptor (BCR)-mediated cell death has been proposed as a mechanism for purging the immune repertoire of anti-self specificities during B cell differentiation in bone marrow. Mitochondrial alterations and activation of caspases are required for certain aspects of apoptotic cell death, but how the mitochondria and caspases contribute to BCR-mediated cell death is not well understo...