Hood Wendy R, Austad Steven N, Bize Pierre, Jimenez Ana Gabriela, Montooth Kristi L, Schulte Patricia M, Scott Graham R, Sokolova Inna, Treberg Jason R, Salin Karine
Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, AL 36849, USA.
Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35294-1170, USA.
Integr Comp Biol. 2018 Sep 1;58(3):480-485. doi: 10.1093/icb/icy089.
Animals display tremendous variation in their rates of growth, reproductive output, and longevity. While the physiological and molecular mechanisms that underlie this variation remain poorly understood, the performance of the mitochondrion has emerged as a key player. Mitochondria not only impact the performance of eukaryotes via their capacity to produce ATP, but they also play a role in producing heat and reactive oxygen species and function as a major signaling hub for the cell. The papers included in this special issue emerged from a symposium titled "Inside the Black Box: The Mitochondrial Basis of Life-history Variation and Animal Performance." Based on studies of diverse animal taxa, three distinct themes emerged from these papers. (1) When linking mitochondrial function to components of fitness, it is crucial that mitochondrial assays are performed in conditions as close as the intracellular conditions experienced by the mitochondria in vivo. (2) Functional plasticity allows mitochondria to retain their performance, as well as that of their host, over a range of exogenous conditions, and selection on mitochondrial and nuclear-derived proteins can optimize the match between the environment and the bioenergetic capacity of the mitochondrion. Finally, (3) studies of wild and wild-derived animals suggest that mitochondria play a central role in animal performance and life history strategy. Taken as a whole, we hope that these papers will foster discussion and inspire new hypotheses and innovations that will further our understanding of the mitochondrial processes that underlie variation in life history traits and animal performance.
动物在生长速度、繁殖产出和寿命方面表现出巨大差异。尽管造成这种差异的生理和分子机制仍知之甚少，但线粒体的功能已成为一个关键因素。线粒体不仅通过产生ATP的能力影响真核生物的功能，还在产生热量和活性氧方面发挥作用，并作为细胞的主要信号枢纽。本期特刊中的论文源自一场题为“黑箱内部：生活史变异和动物表现的线粒体基础”的研讨会。基于对多种动物类群的研究，这些论文呈现出三个不同的主题。（1）将线粒体功能与适应性成分联系起来时，至关重要的是在线粒体在体内所经历的尽可能接近细胞内条件的情况下进行线粒体检测。（2）功能可塑性使线粒体能够在一系列外源条件下保持其自身以及宿主的性能，并且对线粒体和核衍生蛋白的选择可以优化环境与线粒体生物能量能力之间的匹配。最后，（3）对野生和野生来源动物的研究表明，线粒体在动物表现和生活史策略中起着核心作用。总体而言，我们希望这些论文将促进讨论并激发新的假设和创新，从而进一步加深我们对构成生活史特征和动物表现变异基础的线粒体过程的理解。
