Abstract
For decades, it was not entirely clear why mitochondria develop cristae? The work employing the transmembrane-electrostatic proton localization theory reported here has now provided a clear answer to this fundamental question. Surprisingly, the transmembrane-electrostatically localized proton concentration at a curved mitochondrial crista tip can be significantly higher than that at the relatively flat membrane plane regions where the proton-pumping respiratory supercomplexes are situated. The biological significance for mitochondrial cristae has now, for the first time, been elucidated at a protonic bioenergetics level: 1) The formation of cristae creates more mitochondrial inner membrane surface area and thus more protonic capacitance for transmembrane-electrostatically localized proton energy storage; and 2) The geometric effect of a mitochondrial crista enhances the transmembrane-electrostatically localized proton density to the crista tip where the ATP synthase can readily utilize the localized proton density to drive ATP synthesis.
Highlights
It was not entirely clear why mitochondria develop cristae? The work employing the transmembrane-electrostatic proton localization theory reported here has provided a clear answer to this fundamental question
It is quite clear that the proton-pumping “respiratory supercomplexes”[19,20,21,22] which comprise the redox-driven proton-pumping complexes I, III and IV are situated primarily at the relatively flat membrane plane regions of mitochondrial cristae whereas the mitochondrial ATP synthase dimers are distributed at the curved cristae tips and ridges[10,11,12,13,20,21]
Its bioenergetics significance can be better understood with the Lee model[28,29,30,31,54] of transmembrane electrostatically localized protons as shown in the membrane potential (Δψ) equation (Eq 5), which shows that Δψ exists precisely because of the excess cations and the excess anions charge layers localized on the two sides of the membrane in a protons-membrane-anions capacitor structure (Fig. 2)
Summary
It was not entirely clear why mitochondria develop cristae? The work employing the transmembrane-electrostatic proton localization theory reported here has provided a clear answer to this fundamental question.
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