Mitochondria and Reactive Oxygen Species

Abstract

Fascination by the mitochondria, “the colonial posterity of migrant prokaryocytes, probably primitive bacteria that swam into ancestral precursors of our eukaryotic cells and stayed there,”1 stems from the above-mentioned nebulous endosymbiotic theory of their origin, as well as from the growing realization of a very special role that they play in the pathogenesis of diverse diseases. These organelles generate energy primarily in the form of the electrochemical proton gradient (ΔμH+), which fuels ATP production, ion transport, and metabolism.2 Generation of this universal energy currency, ΔμH+, occurs through the series of oxidative reactions conducted by the respiratory chain complexes at the ion-impermeable, almost cholesterol-free inner membrane. Reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide represents the entry point to the complex I (reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide:ubiquinone reductase), whereas the reduced ubiquinol enters the respiratory chain in the complex III (ubiquinol:cytochrome c [cyt-c] reductase) to reduce cyt-c, the electron carrier to the complex IV, cyt-c oxidase. Each of these steps generates ΔμH+ by electrogenic pumping of protons from the mitochondrial matrix to the intermembrane space and is coupled to electron flow, thus generating the electric membrane potential of −180 to −220 mV and a pH gradient of 0.4 to 0.6 U across the inner mitochondrial membrane resulting in the negatively charged matrix side of the membrane and alkaline matrix. Ultimately, accumulated ΔμH+ is converted into the influx of protons into the matrix driving ATP synthesis or protein transport. In addition, these end points are necessary for the execution of 2 major enzymatic metabolic pathways within the mitochondrial matrix: the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) oxidation cycle and the fatty acid β-oxidation pathway. This intricate system fueling cellular functions is as elegant as it is vulnerable: practically every component of the system, from the electron transport chain complexes to the permeability properties of the membranes, is a …