Museum and Institute of Zoology, Polish Academy of Science, Wilcza 64, 00-679 Warsaw, Poland.
Witold Stefański Institute of Parasitology, Polish Academy of Sciences, Twarda 51/55, 00-875 Warsaw, Poland.
Int J Mol Sci. 2023 Jun 15;24(12):10169. doi: 10.3390/ijms241210169.
Mitochondria have been shown to play an important role in apoptosis using mammalian cell lines. However, their role in insects is not fully understood; thus, more indepth studies of insect cell apoptosis are necessary. The present study investigates mitochondrial involvement during -induced apoptosis in hemocytes. Previous research has shown that fungal infection could induce apoptosis in insect hemocytes. Our findings indicate that mitochondria undergo several morphological and physiological changes during fungal infection, e.g., loss of mitochondrial membrane potential, megachannel formation, disturbances in intracellular respiration, increased nonrespiratory oxygen consumption in mitochondria, decreased ATP-coupled oxygen consumption and increased non-ATP-coupled oxygen consumption, decreased extracellular and intracellular oxygen consumption, and increased extracellular pH. Our findings confirm that immunocompetent cells demonstrate Ca overload in mitochondria, translocation of cytochrome c-like protein from mitochondrial to cytosol fraction, and higher activation of caspase-9-like protein after infection. Most importantly, several of the changes observed in insect mitochondria are similar to those accompanying apoptosis in mammalian cells, suggesting that the process is evolutionarily conserved.
线粒体在使用哺乳动物细胞系的细胞凋亡中起着重要作用。然而，它们在昆虫中的作用尚未完全了解；因此，需要对昆虫细胞凋亡进行更深入的研究。本研究调查了 - 诱导的昆虫血细胞细胞凋亡过程中线粒体的参与。先前的研究表明，真菌感染可诱导昆虫血细胞凋亡。我们的研究结果表明，在线虫真菌感染过程中线粒体发生了几种形态和生理变化，例如，线粒体膜电位丧失、巨通道形成、细胞内呼吸紊乱、线粒体非呼吸耗氧量增加、ATP 偶联耗氧量和非 ATP 偶联耗氧量减少、细胞外和细胞内耗氧量减少以及细胞外 pH 值升高。我们的研究结果证实，免疫活性细胞在线粒体中表现出 Ca 超载，细胞色素 c 样蛋白从线粒体转移到胞质部分，以及在感染后 caspase-9 样蛋白的更高激活。最重要的是，昆虫线粒体中观察到的几种变化与哺乳动物细胞凋亡过程中的变化相似，这表明该过程在进化上是保守的。
