New publication in Life Science Alliance by the Liesa laboratory revealing the heterogeneity of mitochondria attached to lipid droplets in white adipose tissue.

A isolation method developed by the Liesa and Shirihai laboratories reveal stissue-specific characteristics of mitochondria attached to lipid droplets and establishes the existence of heterogeneity in peridroplet mitochondria function determined by lipid droplet size.

Recent studies in brown adipose tissue (BAT) described a unique subpopulation of mitochondria bound to lipid droplets (LDs), which were termed PeriDroplet Mitochondria (PDM). PDM can be isolated from BAT by differential centrifugation and salt washes. Contrary to BAT, this approach has so far not led to the successful isolation of PDM from white adipose tissue (WAT). Here, we developed a method to isolate PDM from WAT with high yield and purity by an optimized proteolytic treatment that preserves the respiratory function of mitochondria. Using this approach, we show that, contrary to BAT, WAT PDM have lower respiratory and ATP synthesis capacities compared with WAT cytoplasmic mitochondria (CM). Furthermore, by isolating PDM from LDs of different sizes, we found a negative correlation between LD size and the respiratory capacity of their PDM in WAT. Thus, our new isolation method reveals tissue-specific characteristics of PDM and establishes the existence of heterogeneity in PDM function determined by LD size.

Article: Alexandra J Brownstein, Michaela Veliova  , Rebeca Acin-Perez, Frankie Villalobos, Anton Petcherski, Alberto Tombolato, Marc Liesa*, Orian S Shirihai*. Mitochondria isolated from lipid droplets of white adipose tissue reveal functional differences based on lipid droplet size. Life Science Alliance. vol 7 | no 2 | e202301934, 2024

Correspondence: mlrbmc@ibmb.csic.es; oshirihai@mednet.ucla.edu
*Marc Liesa and Orian S Shirihai contributed equally to this work

https://www.life-science-alliance.org/content/7/2/e202301934