Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF, 5327K) PDF+supp data (7665K) PPT slides of all figures Supplemental Material Alert me when this article is cited Citation Map Services Email this article Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new content in the JCB Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via CrossRef Google Scholar Articles by Rolland, S. G. Articles by Conradt, B. PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Rolland, S. G. Articles by Conradt, B. Pubmed/NCBI databases Gene GEO Profiles HomoloGene UniGene Social Bookmarking                            What's this?

The BCL-2–like protein CED-9 of C. elegans promotes FZO-1/Mfn1,2– and EAT-3/Opa1–dependent mitochondrial fusion

¹ Department of Genetics, Norris Cotton Cancer Center, Dartmouth Medical School, Hanover, NH 03755
² Department Biologie II, Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, 82152 Planegg-Martinsried, Germany

Correspondence to Barbara Conradt: barbara.conradt{at}dartmouth.edu

The mammalian dynamin-related guanosine triphosphatases Mfn1,2 and Opa1 are required for mitochondrial fusion. However, how their activities are controlled and coordinated is largely unknown. We present data that implicate the BCL-2–like protein CED-9 in the control of mitochondrial fusion in Caenorhabditis elegans. We demonstrate that CED-9 can promote complete mitochondrial fusion of both the outer and inner mitochondrial membrane. We also show that this fusion is dependent on the C. elegans Mfn1,2 homologue FZO-1 and the C. elegans Opa1 homologue EAT-3. Furthermore, we show that CED-9 physically interacts with FZO-1 in vivo and that the ability of CED-9 to interact with FZO-1 is important for its ability to cause mitochondrial fusion. CED-9–induced mitochondrial fusion is not required for the maintenance of mitochondrial morphology during embryogenesis or in muscle cells, at least under normal conditions and in the absence of stress. Therefore, we propose that the BCL-2–like CED-9 acts through FZO-1/Mfn1,2 and EAT-3/Opa1 to promote mitochondrial fusion in response to specific cellular signals.

Abbreviations used in this paper: IMM, inner mitochondrial membrane; OMM, outer mitochondrial membrane; TMRE, tetramethyl rhodamine ethyl ester; UTR, untranslated region.

© 2009 Rolland et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of an Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike–No Mirror Sites license for the first six months after the publication date (see http://www.jcb.org/misc/terms.shtml). After six months it is available under a Creative Commons License (Attribution–Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported license, as described at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).

CiteULike

Complore

Connotea

Del.icio.us

Digg

Facebook

Reddit

Technorati

Twitter

Home | Help | Feedback | Subscriptions | Archive | Search | Table of Contents