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Division of labour: mitochondria split to meet energy demands

How do mitochondria, the cell’s energy-producing organelles, perform competing metabolic processes? Segregation into distinct populations — one that makes energy-storing ATP molecules and one that does not — could explain it.
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  1. Lena Pernas

    1. Lena Pernas is in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, Maryland, USA.

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Mitochondria are metabolic hubs that provide the energy and nutrients essential for cellular proliferation. To do this, these organelles house diverse metabolic reactions, several of which rely on similar substrates and are therefore ostensibly competing. How mitochondria accomplish this feat on demand is unclear. Writing in Nature, Ryu et al.1 reveal one strategy by which mitochondria are segregated to sustain competing reactions and thereby generate the substrates that cells require.

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Nature 635, 557-558 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-03469-0

References

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Competing Interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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