Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Lackner, Laura L
• Ping, Holly
• Graef, Martin
• Murley, Andrew
• Nunnari, Jodi

Titel

Endoplasmic reticulum-associated mitochondria–cortex tether functions in the distribution and inheritance of mitochondria

Ist Teil von

• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS, 2013-02, Vol.110 (6), p.E458-E467

Ort / Verlag

United States: National Academy of Sciences

Erscheinungsjahr

2013

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• To elucidate the functional roles of mitochondrial dynamics in vivo, we identified genes that become essential in cells lacking the dynamin-related proteins Fzo1 and Dnm1, which are required for mitochondrial fusion and division, respectively. The screen identified Num1, a cortical protein implicated in mitochondrial division and distribution that also functions in nuclear migration. Our data indicate that Num1, together with Mdm36, forms a physical tether that robustly anchors mitochondria to the cell cortex but plays no direct role in mitochondrial division. Our analysis indicates that Num1-dependent anchoring is essential for distribution of the static mitochondrial network in fzo1 dnm1 cells. Consistently, expression of a synthetic mitochondria–cortex tether rescues the viability of fzo1 dnm1 num1 cells. We find that the cortical endoplasmic reticulum (ER) also is a constituent of the Num1 mitochondria–cortex tether, suggesting an active role for the ER in mitochondrial positioning in cells. Thus, taken together, our findings identify Num1 as a key component of a mitochondria–ER–cortex anchor, which we termed “MECA,” that functions in parallel with mitochondrial dynamics to distribute and position the essential mitochondrial network.