Mitochondria in biology and medicine - 2023.

Mitochondria are an indispensable part of the cell that plays a crucial role in regulating various signaling pathways, energy metabolism, cell differentiation, proliferation, and cell death. Since mitochondria have their own genetic material, they differ from their nuclear counterparts, and dysregulation is responsible for a broad spectrum of diseases. Mitochondrial dysfunction is associated with several disorders, including neuro-muscular disorders, cancer, and premature aging, among others. The intricacy of the field is due to the cross-talk between nuclear and mitochondrial genes, which has also improved our knowledge of mitochondrial functions and their pathogenesis. Therefore, interdisciplinary research and communication are crucial for mitochondrial biology and medicine due to the challenges they pose for diagnosis and treatment. The ninth annual conference of the Society for Mitochondria Research and Medicine (SMRM)- India, titled "Mitochondria in Biology and Medicine" was organized at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), Hyderabad, India, on June 21-23, 2023. The latest advancements in the field of mitochondrial biology and medicine were discussed at the conference. In this article, we summarize the entire event for the benefit of researchers working in the field of mitochondrial biology and medicine.

Electrochemical mapping of oxygenation in the three-dimensional multicellular tumour hemi-spheroid.

Blood capillaries deliver oxygen and nutrients to surrounding micro-regions of tissue and carry away metabolic waste. In normal tissue, capillaries are close enough to keep all the cells viable. In solid tumours, the capillary system is chaotic and typical inter-capillary distances are larger than in normal tissue. Therefore, hypoxic regions develop. Drug molecules may not reach these areas at concentrations above the lethal level. The combined effect of low drug concentrations and local hypoxia, often exacerbated by acidity, leads to therapy failure. To better understand the interplay between hypoxia and poor drug penetration, oxygenation needs to be assessed in different areas of inter-capillary tissue. The multicellular tumour spheroid is a well-established three-dimensional (3D) in vitro model of the capillary microenvironment. It is used to mimic nascent tumours and micro-metastases as well. In this work, we demonstrate for the first time that dynamic intra-spheroidal oxygen maps can be obtained at the 3D multicellular tumour hemi-spheroid (MCH) using a non-invasive microelectrode array. The same oxygen distributions exist inside the equivalent but less accessible full spheroid. The MCH makes high throughput-high content analysis of spheroids feasible and thus can assist studies on basic cancer biology, drug development and personalized medicine.

A Rare Case of Genital Malformation with Omphalocele, Exstrophy of Bladder, Imperforate Anus and Spinal Defect Complex-Autopsy Findings.

Omphalocele, Exstrophy of cloaca, Imperforate anus and Spinal defects (OEIS) is a severe manifestation of exstrophy-epispadias sequence with a combination of defects including OEIS. It results from improper closure of anterior abdominal wall and defective development of cloaca and urogenital septum due to defect in blastogenesis during the 4th week of gestation. Identification of this complex is important through foetal autopsy as this condition can recur in siblings. Prenatal diagnosis also helps to prevent foetal death with appropriate management in the less severe cases. In severe cases, termination of pregnancy is considered. A primigravida with 28 weeks of gestation had delivered a live baby with multiple congenital anomalies; baby died after 10 minutes. These anomalies were grouped under OEIS complex.

A point mutation in AgrC determines cytotoxic or colonizing properties associated with phenotypic variants of ST22 MRSA strains.

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a major cause of skin and soft tissue infections. One of the highly successful and rapidly disseminating clones is MRSA ST22 commonly associated with skin tropism. Here we show that a naturally occurring single amino acid substitution (tyrosine to cysteine) at position 223 of AgrC determines starkly different ST22 S. aureus virulence phenotypes, e.g. cytotoxic or colonizing, as evident in both in vitro and in vivo skin infections. Y223C amino acid substitution destabilizes AgrC-AgrA interaction leading to a colonizing phenotype characterized by upregulation of bacterial surface proteins. The colonizing phenotype strains cause less severe skin tissue damage, show decreased susceptibility towards the antimicrobial LL-37 and induce autophagy. In contrast, cytotoxic strains with tyrosine at position 223 of AgrC cause infections characterized by inflammasome activation and severe skin tissue pathology. Taken together, the study demonstrates how a single amino acid substitution in the histidine kinase receptor AgrC of ST22 strains determines virulence properties and infection outcome.

Differential linear scan voltammetry: analytical performance in comparison with pulsed voltammetry techniques.

We report here on differential linear scan voltammetry, DLSV, that combines the working principles of linear scan voltammetry, LSV, and the numerous existing pulsed voltammetry techniques. DLSV preserves the information from continuous interrogation in voltage and high accuracy that LSV provides about electrochemical processes, and the much better sensitivity of differential pulsed techniques. DLSV also minimizes the background current compared to both LSV and pulsed voltammetry. An early version of DLSV, derivative stationary electrode polarography, DSEP, had been proposed in the 1960s but soon abandoned in favor of the emerging differential pulsed techniques. Relative to DSEP, DLSV takes advantage of the flexibility of discrete smoothing differentiation that was not available to early investigators. Also, DSEP had been explored in pure solutions and with reversible electrochemical reactions. DLSV is tested in this work in more challenging experimental contexts: the measurement of oxygen with a carbon fiber microelectrode in buffer, and with a gold microdisc electrode exposed to a live biological preparation. This work compares the analytical performance of DLSV and square wave voltammetry, the most popular pulsed voltammetry technique.

Spatially averaging electrodes.

Both potentiometric and voltammetric measurements report on the concentration of the analyte in the closest layer of the sample solution that is unperturbed by the measurement. Besides this local concentration, the solution composition within the thin boundary layer adjacent to the electrode|solution interface is influenced also by local mass transport and other electrochemical processes necessary for signal transduction. This local perturbation of concentrations is typically corrected for by calibration so that the ultimate output of the measurement is the local concentration, at a distance of a few micrometers to about 100 microm from the electrode surface. In contrast to many optical techniques, the electrochemical approach is therefore only capable of measuring local concentrations but cannot be used to assess three-dimensional (3D)-averaged bulk concentrations of inhomogeneous samples. This may pose a problem in very small samples where homogenization by stirring is difficult. We present here the concept of spatially averaging electrodes that can, due to their special design, report 3D spatially averaged bulk concentration of inhomogeneous samples that have some type of symmetry. Within a given type of symmetry an infinite variation of concentration distribution may exist. We illustrate the concept of spatially averaging electrodes with results obtained in microliter-sized hemispherical samples with a source in the center of the drop.