Studying mitochondria in an attractive model: Schizosaccharomyces pombe.

The fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, widely used for studies of cell cycle control and differentiation, provides an alternative and complementary model to the budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae for studies of nucleo-mitochondrial interactions. There are striking similarities between S. pombe and mammalian cells, in both their respiratory physiology and their mitochondrial genome structure. This technical review briefly lists the general and specific properties that are helpful to know when starting to use fission yeast as a model system for mitochondrial studies. In addition, advice is given for cell growth and genetic techniques, tips for disruption of genes involved in respiration are presented. and a basic differential centrifugation protocol is provided for the isolation of purified mitochondria that are suitable for diverse applications such as subfractionation and in vitro import.