Artículo de revista
Characterization of mitochondrial iron uptake in HepG2 cells
Autor
Mazariegos, Dora Inés
Cabantchik, Z. Ioav
Cassels Niven, Bruce
Núñez González, Marco
Institución
Resumen
There is increasing evidence that accumulation of redox-active iron in mitochondria leads to oxidative
damage and contributes to various neurodegenerative diseases, such as Friedreich’s ataxia and Parkinson’s
disease. In this work, we examined the existence of regulatory mechanisms for mitochondrial iron uptake and
storage. To that end, we used rhodamine B-[(1,10-phenanthrolin-5-yl)amino carbonyl] benzyl ester, a new
fluorescent iron-sensitive probe that is targeted specifically to the mitochondrion. We found that extracellular
iron was incorporated readily into mitochondria in an apparently saturable process. Moreover, the rate of iron
incorporation responded to the Fe status of the cell, an indication that the mitochondrion actively regulates its
iron content.