Ultrastructural aspects and amino acid composition of the purified inner and outer membranes of human liver mitochondria as compared to rat liver mitochondria.

1. The mitochondria isolated from human or rat liver were fractionated into submitochondrial particles and purified inner and outer membrane. According to different marker enzymes the inner membranes were enriched about 5-6-fold and the outer membranes about 12-14-fold. The electron microscopical appearance of the membranes was that expected on the basis of enzymic characterization. 2. A comparison of the average amino acid composition of the membrane proteins from the two types of mitochondria has been made. In the case of submitochondrial particles there were statistically significant differences between the human and rat hydrolysates for only five amino acids. Analysing the purified mitochondrial membranes there were significant differences between the two species for nine amino acids in the case of outer membranes and for 12 amino acids in the case of inner membranes. 3. With one exception all amino acids that were increased or decreased in the outer membrane exhibited a similar trend in the inner membrane of human compared with rat liver mitochondria. It appears that liver mitochondrial membranes have a species-dependent pattern of amino acid composition of their proteins.