ATP diffusional gradients are sufficient to maintain bioenergetic homeostasis in synaptic boutons lacking mitochondria.

Abstract

Previous work on mitochondrial distribution in axons has shown that approximately half of the presynaptic release sites do not contain mitochondria, raising the question of how the boutons that do not contain mitochondria are supplied with ATP. Here, we develop and apply a mathematical model to study this question. Specifically, we investigate whether diffusive transport of ATP is sufficient to support the exocytic functionality in synaptic boutons which lack mitochondria. Our results demonstrate that the difference in ATP concentration between a bouton containing a mitochondrion and a neighboring bouton lacking a mitochondrion is only approximately 0.4%, which is still 3.75 times larger than the ATP concentration minimally required to support synaptic vesicle release. This work therefore suggests that passive diffusion of ATP is sufficient to maintain the functionality of boutons which do not contain mitochondria.