Biomedical Research

Mitochondria are dynamic organelles that undergo fission and fusion cycles. The major mitochondrial fission protein is dynamin-related Drp1 GTPase ( Dnm1 in yeast). Here, the model of Schizosaccharomyces pombe was used to explore the effect of Dnm1 gene deletion on cell dynamics in mitosis. The Dnm1 gene deletion can cause slow growth, and sporogenesis abnormality of Schizosaccharomyces pombe, and the microtubules number and length abnormality at interphase. The Dnm1 gene deletion can also affect the growth rate and time of spindle in the metaphase and anaphase, and affect the fluorescence intensity of spindle in the prophase and metaphase. At the same time, spindle microtubule organization and dynamics were different in Dnm1 Δ cells compared with wild type cells. Spindle length statistics showed that there was delayed spindle breakage in Dnm1 Δ cells. Live-cell imaging was performed on mutant strains to observe two distinct chromosome behaviors: normal and lagging. Analysis of coenzyme, intermediates and energy in energy metabolism indicated that some abnormalities occurred after the deletion of the Dnm1 gene. It is concluded that the loss of Dnm1 gene from mitochondria resulted in mitochondrial dynamics deficiency which will contribute to the spindle maintenance deficiency, chromosome segregation deficiency, spindle breakage deficiency, coenzyme deficiency, intermediate metabolite deficiency and ATP production deficiency.

Author(s): Xiumei Tan, Rongmei Yuan, Xiang Ding, Yilling Haou
Abstract | PDF

Share this