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R Rossignol

Publications and source records attributed to R Rossignol.

15 recordsLinked to original sources

Physiological diversity of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation.

To investigate the physiological diversity in the regulation and control of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation, we determined the composition and functional features of the respiratory chain in muscle, heart, liver, kidney, and brain. First, we observed important variations in mitochondrial content and infrastructure via electron micrographs of the different tissue sections. Analyses of respiratory chain enzyme content by Western blot also showed large differences between tissues, in good correlation with the expression level of mitochondrial transcription factor A and the activity of citrate synthase. On the isolated mitochondria, we observed a conserved molar ratio between the respiratory chain complexes and a variable stoichiometry for coenzyme Q and cytochrome c, with typical values of [1-1.5]:[30-135]:[3]:[9-35]:[6.5-7.5] for complex II:coenzyme Q:complex III:cytochrome c:complex IV in the different tissues. The functional analysis revealed important differences in maximal velocities of respiratory chain complexes, with higher values in heart. However, calculation of the catalytic constants showed that brain contained the more active enzyme complexes. Hence, our study demonstrates that, in tissues, oxidative phosphorylation capacity is highly variable and diverse, as determined by different combinations of 1) the mitochondrial content, 2) the amount of respiratory chain complexes, and 3) their intrinsic activity. In all tissues, there was a large excess of enzyme capacity and intermediate substrate concentration, compared with what is required for state 3 respiration. To conclude, we submitted our data to a principal component analysis that revealed three groups of tissues: muscle and heart, brain, and liver and kidney.

Animals↗

Structural organization of the perimysium in bovine skeletal muscle: Junctional plates and associated intracellular subdomains.

We analyzed the structural features of the perimysium collagen network in bovine Flexor carpi radialis muscle using various sample preparation methods and microscopy techniques. We first observed by scanning electron microscopy that perimysium formed a regular network of collagen fibers with three hierarchical levels including (i) a loose lattice of large interwoven fibers ramified in (ii) numerous collagen plexi attaching together adjacent myofibers at the level of (iii) specific structures that we call perimysial junctional plates. Second, we looked more closely at the intracellular organization underneath each plate using transmission electron microscopy, immunohistochemistry, and a three-dimensional reconstruction from serial sections. We observed the accumulation of myonuclei arranged in clusters surrounded by a high density of subsarcolemmal mitochondria and the proximity of capillary branches. Third, we analyzed the distribution of these perimysial junctional plates, subsarcolemmal mitochondria, and myonuclei clusters along the myofibers using a statistical analysis of the distances between these structures. This revealed a global colocalization and the existence of adhesion domains between endomysium and perimysium. Taken together, our observations give a better description of the perimysium organization in skeletal muscle, and provide evidence that perimysial junctional plates with associated intracellular subdomains may participate in the lateral transmission of contractile forces as well as mechanosensing.

Animals↗

Identification of tyrosine-phosphorylated proteins of the mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation machinery.

The role of some serine/threonine kinases in the regulation of mitochondrial physiology is now well established, but little is known about mitochondrial tyrosine kinases. We showed that tyrosine phosphorylation of rat brain mitochondrial proteins was increased by in vitro addition of ATP and H2O2, and also during in situ ATP production at state 3, and maximal reactive oxygen species production. The Src kinase inhibitor PP2 decreased tyrosine phosphorylation and respiratory rates at state 3. We found that the 39-kDa subunit of complex I was tyrosine phosphorylated, and we identified putative tyrosine-phosphorylated subunits for the other complexes. We also have strong evidence that the FoF1-ATP synthase alpha chain is probably tyrosine-phosphorylated, but demonstrated that the beta chain is not. The tyrosine phosphatase PTP 1B was found in brain but not in muscle, heart or liver mitochondria. Our results suggest that tyrosine kinases and phosphatases are involved in the regulation of oxidative phosphorylation.

Animals↗

Gradual alteration of mitochondrial structure and function by beta-amyloids: importance of membrane viscosity changes, energy deprivation, reactive oxygen species production, and cytochrome c release.

Intracellular amyloid beta-peptide (A beta) accumulation is considered to be a key pathogenic factor in sporadic Alzheimer's disease (AD), but the mechanisms by which it triggers neuronal dysfunction remain unclear. We hypothesized that gradual mitochondrial dysfunction could play a central role in both initiation and progression of sporadic AD. Thus, we analyzed changes in mitochondrial structure and function following direct exposure to increasing concentrations of A beta(1--42) and A beta(25--35) in order to look more closely at the relationships between mitochondrial membrane viscosity, ATP synthesis, ROS production, and cytochrome c release. Our results show the accumulation of monomeric A beta within rat brain and muscle mitochondria. Subsequently, we observed four different and additive modes of action of A beta, which were concentration dependent: (i) an increase in mitochondrial membrane viscosity with a concomitant decrease in ATP/O, (ii) respiratory chain complexes inhibition, (iii) a potentialization of ROS production, and (iv) cytochrome c release.

Adenosine Triphosphate↗

What do mitochondrial diseases teach us about normal mitochondrial functions...that we already knew: threshold expression of mitochondrial defects.

This paper shows how metabolic control analysis (MCA) can help to explain two important features of mitochondrial diseases: (i) the existence of a threshold in the expression of the complex deficiencies on the respiratory flux or on ATP synthesis, i.e. the fact that it is necessary to have a large complex deficiency in order to observe a substantial decrease in these fluxes; (ii) the tissue specificity, i.e. the fact that all tissues are not affected, even if the complex deficiency is present in all of them. We also show the limits of MCA, particularly when considering the in vivo situation. However, MCA offers a new way to consider mitochondrial diseases. The fact that fluxes only slightly change, when a complex is affected, is done at the expense of great changes in intermediate metabolite concentrations; intermediate metabolites situated upstream from the deficient complex are more reduced, leading to a greater generation of free radicals. This could bring an explanation for the diseases observed in conditions where the mitochondrial rate of ATP synthesis is only slightly affected.

Adenosine Triphosphate↗

Tissue variation in the control of oxidative phosphorylation: implication for mitochondrial diseases.

Metabolic control analysis has often been used for quantitative studies of the regulation of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylations (OXPHOS). The main contribution of this work has been to show that the control of mitochondrial metabolic fluxes can be shared among several steps of the oxidative phosphorylation process, and that this distribution can vary according to the steady state and the tissue. However, these studies do not show whether this observed variation in the OXPHOS control is due to the experimental conditions or to the nature of the mitochondria. To find out if there actually exists a tissue variation in the distribution of OXPHOS control coefficients, we determined the control coefficients of seven OXPHOS complexes on the oxygen-consumption flux in rat mitochondria isolated from five different tissues under identical experimental conditions. Thus in this work, only the nature of the mitochondria can be responsible for any variation detected in the control coefficient values between different tissues. The analysis of control coefficient distribution shows two tissue groups: (i) the muscle and the heart, controlled essentially at the level of the respiratory chain; and (ii) the liver, the kidney and the brain, controlled mainly at the phosphorylation level by ATP synthase and the phosphate carrier. We propose that this variation in control coefficient according to the tissue origin of the mitochondria can explain part of the tissue specificity observed in mitochondrial cytopathies.

Animals↗

Statistical analysis of mitochondrial pathologies in childhood: identification of deficiencies using principal component analysis.

Mitochondrial pathologies are a heterogeneous group of metabolic disorders that are frequently characterized by anomalies of oxidative phosphorylation, especially in the respiratory chain. The identification of these anomalies may involve many investigations, and biochemistry is a main tool. However, considering the whole set of biochemical data, the interpretation of the results by the traditionally used statistical methods remains complex and does not always lead to an unequivocal conclusion about the presence or absence of a respiratory chain defect. This arises from three main problems: (a) the absence of an a priori-defined control population, because the determination of the control values are derived from the whole set of investigated patients, (b) the small size of the population studied, (c) the large number of variables collected, each of which creates a wide variability. To cope with these problems, the principal component analysis (PCA) has been applied to the biochemical data obtained from 35 muscle biopsies of children suspected of having a mitochondrial disease. This analysis makes it possible for each respiratory chain complex to distinguish between different subsets within the whole population (normal, deficient, and, in between, borderline subgroups of patients) and to detect the most discriminating variables. PCA of the data of all complexes together showed that mitochondrial diseases in this population were mainly caused by multiple deficits in respiratory chain complexes. This analysis allows the definition of a new subgroup of newborns, which have high respiratory chain complex activity values. Our results show that the PCA method, which simultaneously takes into account all of the concerned variables, allows the separation of patients into subgroups, which may help clinicians make their diagnoses.

Adolescent↗

Modification of mitochondrial metabolism in fibroblasts from mice with a skeletal muscle mutation (muscular dysgenesis). Evidence of embryonic communication between myoblasts and fibroblasts.

Muscle development during embryogenesis is a complex process involving many mechanisms. It requires a close communication among the different cellular types of the muscle, especially the fibroblasts and myoblasts. Indeed, any abnormality in one cell type might influence the differentiation of the other. Thus, any disturbance altering the metabolism of the myoblasts might lead to modifications in the fibroblasts. To study this phenomenon, we used the dysgenic mouse (mdg-"muscular dysgenesis") carrying a homozygous recessive lethal mutation expressed only in skeletal muscle cells. First, we found that fibroblasts isolated from such mutant muscle (and not from mutant skin tissue) and grown in culture exhibited an altered metabolism. Secondly, muscle fibroblasts showed a lower capacity for proliferation. We also observed that respiration and ATP synthesis of dysgenic muscle fibroblasts were deficient, while respiratory chain enzymatic activities were normal. Finally, intracellular [Ca2+] levels of dysgenic fibroblasts are 50% of those of normal fibroblasts. These results support the hypothesis that certain characteristics of fibroblasts are determined by the surrounding cellular environment during embryonic organogenesis, and that such modifications are stable when the fibroblasts are isolated in vitro. Since fibroblast differentiation was disrupted permanently, this suggests, in the case of myopathies, that the modified cells, surrounding the muscle tissue, could contribute to the muscle pathology. Synergistic activities of this type should be considered when studying the course of pathologies in different types of muscle diseases.

Adenosine Triphosphate↗

Threshold effect and tissue specificity. Implication for mitochondrial cytopathies.

Mitochondrial cytopathies present a tissue specificity characterized by the fact that even if a mitochondrial DNA mutation is present in all tissues, only some will be affected and induce a pathology. Several mechanisms have been proposed to explain this phenomenon such as the appearance of a sporadic mutation in a given stem cell during embryogenesis or mitotic segregation, giving different degrees of heteroplasmy in tissues. However, these mechanisms cannot be the only ones involved in tissue specificity. In this paper, we propose an additional mechanism contributing to tissue specificity. It is based on the metabolic expression of the defect in oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) complexes that can present a biochemical threshold. The value of this threshold for a given OXPHOS complex can vary according to the tissue; thus different tissues will display different sensitivities to a defect in an OXPHOS complex. To verify this hypothesis and to illustrate the pathological consequences of the variation in biochemical thresholds, we studied their values for seven OXPHOS complexes in mitochondria isolated from five different rat tissues. Two types of behavior in the threshold curves can be distinguished corresponding to two modes of OXPHOS response to a deficiency. We propose a classification of tissues according to their type of OXPHOS response to a complex deficiency and therefore to their threshold values.

Animals↗

Metabolic control analysis and mitochondrial pathologies.

One of the main salient features recognized in mitochondrial diseases is the existence of a threshold in the degree of a mitochondrial deficit for the expression of the disease. When expressed as a function of the degree of heteroplasmy, the value of the threshold can be very high, around 90% (mutated DNA/total DNA). This means that 10% of normal DNA is enough to sustain a quasi normal mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylating flux. We have shown that most of the compensation is done at the metabolic level: for instance a 70% deficit of cytochrome oxidase decreases the oxidative flux by just 10%. Similar patterns are observed for the other complexes. Using Metabolic Control Analysis (MCA), we have shown that this kind of result is inescapable: the threshold value can be correlated to the control coefficient of the deficient step. The value of the threshold is reinforced by slight increases at the transcriptional and translational level as we show in a simple mathematical model. Finally we associate the threshold in the expression of a deficit, to the threshold in the energy demand of different tissues, in order to describe various patterns of onset of mitochondrial diseases (double threshold hypothesis).

Cell Respiration↗

Simple models of threshold curves in the expression of inborn errors of metabolism: application to some experimental observations.

The expression of an enzymatic deficiency in a metabolic network can present a biochemical threshold. This threshold can be characterised thus: (1) a low activity of the enzyme can sustain a normal flux, but (2) a minute further decrease of its activity makes the flux collapse. We give simple mathematical models displaying such a behaviour, and we apply the models to some examples of oxidative phosphorylation dependency on respiratory chain complex deficiency.

Computer Simulation↗