bims-mireme Biomed News
on Mitochondria in regenerative medicine
Issue of 2021–07–18
eight papers selected by
Brian Spurlock, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill



  1. Int Rev Cell Mol Biol. 2021 ;pii: S1937-6448(21)00062-9. [Epub ahead of print]362 111-140
      Hematopoiesis is based on the existence of hematopoietic stem cells (HSC) with the capacity to self-proliferate and self-renew or to differentiate into specialized cells. The hematopoietic niche is the essential microenvironment where stem cells reside and integrate various stimuli to determine their fate. Recent studies have identified niche containing high level of calcium (Ca2+) suggesting that HSCs are sensitive to Ca2+. This is a highly versatile and ubiquitous second messenger that regulates a wide variety of cellular functions. Advanced methods for measuring its concentrations, genetic experiments, cell fate tracing data, single-cell imaging, and transcriptomics studies provide information into its specific roles to integrate signaling into an array of mechanisms that determine HSC identity, lineage potential, maintenance, and self-renewal. Accumulating and contrasting evidence, are revealing Ca2+ as a previously unacknowledged feature of HSC, involved in functional maintenance, by regulating multiple actors including transcription and epigenetic factors, Ca2+-dependent kinases and mitochondrial physiology. Mitochondria are significant participants in HSC functions and their responsiveness to cellular demands is controlled to a significant extent via Ca2+ signals. Recent reports indicate that mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake also controls HSC fate. These observations reveal a physiological feature of hematopoietic stem cells that can be harnessed to improve HSC-related disease. In this review, we discuss the current knowledge Ca2+ in hematopoietic stem cell focusing on its potential involvement in proliferation, self-renewal and maintenance of HSC and discuss future research directions.
    Keywords:  AML; Ca(2+); Hematopoietic stem cell; MDS; Mitochondria; Preleukemia; Self-renewal
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.ircmb.2021.05.003
  2. Int Rev Cell Mol Biol. 2021 ;pii: S1937-6448(21)00020-4. [Epub ahead of print]362 171-207
      It has been demonstrated for more than 40 years that intracellular calcium (Ca2+) controls a variety of cellular functions, including mitochondrial metabolism and cell proliferation. Cytosolic Ca2+ fluctuation during key stages of the cell cycle can lead to mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake and subsequent activation of mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation and a range of signaling. However, the relationship between mitochondrial Ca2+ and cell cycle progression has long been neglected because the molecule responsible for Ca2+ uptake has been unknown. Recently, the identification of the mitochondrial Ca2+ uniporter (MCU) has led to key advances. With improved Ca2+ imaging and detection, effects of MCU-mediated mitochondrial Ca2+ have been observed at different stages of the cell cycle. Elevated Ca2+ signaling boosts ATP and ROS production, remodels cytosolic Ca2+ pathways and reprograms cell fate-determining networks. These findings suggest that manipulating mitochondrial Ca2+ signaling may serve as a potential strategy in the control of many crucial biological events, such as tumor development and cell division in hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs). In this review, we summarize the current understanding of the role of mitochondrial Ca2+ signaling during different stages of the cell cycle and highlight the potential physiological and pathological significance of mitochondrial Ca2+ signaling.
    Keywords:  Cell cycle; MCU; Metabolism; Mitochondrial Ca(2+)
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/bs.ircmb.2021.02.015
  3. Biofactors. 2021 Jul 14.
      Human SW872 preadipocyte conversion to mature adipocytes is associated with time-dependent changes in differentiation markers' expression and with morphological changes accompanied by the accumulation of lipid droplets (LDs) as well as by increased mitochondriogenesis and mitochondrial membrane potential. Under identical conditions, the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) revealed with a general probe was significant at days 3 and 10 of differentiation and bearly detectable at day 6. NADPH oxidase (NOX)-2 activity determined with an immunocytochemical approach followed a very similar pattern. There was no evidence of mitochondrial ROS (mROS), as detected with a selective fluorescence probe, at days 3 and 6, possibly due to the triggering of the Nrf-2 antioxidant response. mROS were instead clearly detected at day 10, concomitantly with the accumulation of very large LDs, oxidation of both cardiolipin and thioredoxin 2, and decreased mitochondrial glutathione. In conclusion, the morphological and biochemical changes of differentiating SW872 cells are accompanied by the discontinuous formation of ROS derived from NOX-2, increasingly implicated in adipogenesis and adipose tissue dysfunction. In addition, mROS formation was significant only in the late phase of differentiation and was associated with mitochondrial dysfunction.
    Keywords:  NADPH oxidase; ROS; adipocyte differentiation; mitochondria
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1002/biof.1769
  4. Ther Adv Reprod Health. 2021 Jan-Dec;15:15 26334941211023544
      Poor ovarian responders exhibit a quantitative reduction in their follicular pool, and most cases are also associated with poor oocyte quality due to patient's age, which leads to impaired in vitro fertilisation outcomes. In particular, poor oocyte quality has been related to mitochondrial dysfunction and/or low mitochondrial count as these organelles are crucial in many essential oocyte processes. Therefore, mitochondrial enrichment has been proposed as a potential therapy option in infertile patients to improve oocyte quality and subsequent in vitro fertilisation outcomes. Nowadays, different options are available for mitochondrial enrichment treatments that are encompassed in two main approaches: heterologous and autologous. In the heterologous approach, mitochondria come from an external source, which is an oocyte donor. These techniques include transferring either a portion of the donor's oocyte cytoplasm to the recipient oocyte or nuclear material from the patient to the donor's oocyte. In any case, this approach entails many ethical and safety concerns that mainly arise from the uncertain degree of mitochondrial heteroplasmy deriving from it. Thus the autologous approach is considered a suitable potential tool to improve oocyte quality by overcoming the heteroplasmy issue. Autologous mitochondrial transfer, however, has not yielded as many beneficial outcomes as initially expected. Proposed mitochondrial autologous sources include immature oocytes, granulosa cells, germline stem cells, and adipose-derived stem cells. Presently, it would seem that these autologous techniques do not improve clinical outcomes in human infertile patients. However, further trials still need to be performed to confirm these results. Besides these two main categories, new strategies have arisen for oocyte rejuvenation by improving patient's own mitochondrial function and avoiding the unknown consequences of third-party genetic material. This is the case of antioxidants, which may enhance mitochondrial activity by counteracting and/or preventing oxidative stress damage. Among others, coenzyme-Q10 and melatonin have shown promising results in low-prognosis infertile patients, although further randomised clinical trials are still necessary.
    Keywords:  mitochondria; mitochondrial enrichment; oocyte rejuvenation; poor oocyte quality
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1177/26334941211023544
  5. Nature. 2021 Jul;595(7867): S64-S66
      
    Keywords:  Diabetes; Immunology; Regeneration; Stem cells
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-01842-x
  6. Curr Stem Cell Res Ther. 2021 Jul 11.
      The Hippo pathway, with its core components and the downstream transcriptional coactivators, controls the self-renewable capacity and stemness features of stem cells and serves as a stress response pathway by regulating proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. The Hippo pathway interaction with other signaling ways plays a vital role in response to various stress stimuli arising from energy metabolism, hypoxia, reactive oxygen species, and mechanical forces. Depending on the energy levels, the Hippo pathway is regulated by AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR), which in turn determines stem cell proliferation (cell survival and growth) and differentiation. Oxidative stress-driven by ROS production also affects the Hippo pathway with transcriptional changes through MST/YAP/FoxO pathway and leads to the activation of pro-apoptotic genes and eventually cell death. HIF1alpha/YAP signaling is critical for the long-term maintenance of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) under hypoxia. In this review, we present an overview of stem cell response to stress, including mechanical, hypoxia, metabolic and oxidative stress through the modulation of the Hippo pathway. The biological effects such as autophagy, apoptosis and senescence were discussed in the context of the Hippo pathway in stem cells.
    Keywords:  Hippo pathway; YAP/TAZ; autophagy; hypoxia; oxidative stress; stem cell; stress
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.2174/1574888X16666210712100002
  7. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2021 Jul 07. pii: S0006-291X(21)01019-6. [Epub ahead of print]569 139-146
      Brown adipocytes (BA) are a specialized fat cell which possesses a high capacity for fuel oxidation combined with heat production. The maintenance of high metabolic activity in BA requires elevated oxidation of fuel through the tricarboxylic acid cycle. Pyruvate carboxylase (PC) was previously proposed to be essential for coordination between fuel oxidation and thermogenesis. By differentiating human pluripotent stem cells to mature BA in vitro, we showed that ablation of PC gene by CRISPR Cas9 genome engineering did not impair the ability of stem cells to generate mature BA. However, brown adipocytes deficient for PC expression displayed a 35% reduction in ATP-linked respiration, but not thermogenesis under both basal and isoproterenol-stimulated conditions. This relatively mild impairment of ATP-link respiration in PC knockout BA was protected by increased spare mitochondrial respiratory capacity. Taken together, this study highlights the role of PC in supporting fuel oxidation rather than thermogenesis in human BA.
    Keywords:  Metabolism; Pluripotent stem cell; Pyruvate carboxylase; Thermogenesis; brown adipocytes
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrc.2021.06.096
  8. Spectrochim Acta A Mol Biomol Spectrosc. 2021 Jul 06. pii: S1386-1425(21)00734-4. [Epub ahead of print]262 120157
      We studied the effects of photobiomodulation therapy (PBMT) on adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ADSCs) which were extracted from streptozotocin (STZ) induced diabetic rats. Adipose tissue was extracted from the hypodermis of diabetic rats, and diabetic ADSCs were extracted, characterized, and cultured. There were two in vitro groups: control-diabetic ADSCs, and PBMT-diabeticADSCs. We used 630 nm and 810 nm laser at 1.2 J/cm2 with 3 applications 48 h apart. We measured cell viability, apoptosis, population doubling time (PDT), and reactive oxygen species (ROS) by flow cytometry. Gene expression of antioxidants, including cytosolic copper-zinc superoxide dismutase (SOD1), catalase (CAT), total antioxidant capacity (TAC), and oxidative stress biomarkers (NADPH oxidase 1 and 4) by quantitative real time (qRT) - PCR. In this study, data were analyzed using t-test. Viability of PBMT-diabetic- ADSC group was higher than control- diabetic-ADSC (p = 0.000). PDT and apoptosis of PBMT- diabetic-ADSC group were lower than control-diabetic -ADSC (p = 0.001, p = 0.02). SOD1 expression and TAC of PBMT- diabetic-ADSC group were higher than control -diabetic -ADSC (p = 0.018, p = 0.005). CAT of PBMT -diabetic-ADSC group was higher than control-diabetic -ADSC. ROS, NOX1, and NOX4 of PBMT- diabetic -ADSC group were lower than control-diabetic-ADSC (p = 0.002, p = 0.021, p = 0.017). PBMT may improve diabetic- ADSC function in vitro by increasing levels of cell viability, and gene expression of antioxidant agents (SOD1, CAT, and TAC), and significantly decreasing of levels of PDT, apoptosis, ROS, and gene expression of oxidative stress biomarkers (NOX1 and NOX4).
    Keywords:  Adipose derived mesenchymal stem cells: Oxidative stress; Antioxidants; Apoptosis; Diabetes mellitus; Photobiomodulation therapy
    DOI:  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.saa.2021.120157