Robust Mitochondrial Isolation from Rodent Cardiac Tissue

Mitochondria involved with many disease pathologies. They are essential organelles that act as rechargeable and renewable biological batteries. They're often referred to as the powerhouse of the cell.

They make complex life possible. Our lab is primarily interested in how these biological batteries operate during healthy and disease states to discover effective curatives and develop new therapies. Our lab has identified the presence of calcium phosphate granules embedded in the matrix of mitochondria that disrupt their ability to provide chemical energy for the cell.

We have also identified that this effect is sexually dimorphic in nature. Our protocol is a simple and effective way to generate high-quality mitochondria for advanced biomedical research. The protocol consistently produces purified mitochondria with high coupling ratios, one of several measures of quality.

Thus, the data we collect are less impacted by isolation artifacts and better reflect their NC2 behavior. Generating data from high-quality mitochondrial isolates enables us to better understand how mitochondria operate under various conditions, and therefore, interrogate possible mechanisms of disease. The calcium phosphate granules we have identified may be causal to heart failure.

They cause an impairment in ATP output, which may help explain the bioenergetic abnormality seen in human patients with severe left ventricle hypertrophy and heart failure.