Figure 1.
Panel A: A schematic diagram showing the coculture system. It depicts cells expressing su9-EGFP and cells expressing su9-mScarlet-DHFR in the presence of MTX. The diagram illustrates the mitochondrial import process and the effect of MTX on mitochondrial import. Panel B: Representative microscopy images showing su9-mScarlet-DHFR expressing mitochondria in a tunneling nanotube (TNT) and su9-EGFP expressing mitochondria in a TNT. The images highlight the import-defective and import-competent mitochondria. Scale bars are 20 micrometers. Panel C: Violin plots quantifying various parameters of TNTs over three technical repeats. The parameters include TNT length, average TNT width, number of mitochondria in TNT, and length of each individual mitochondrion within TNTs. The plots show mean lines and p-values from unpaired two-tailed T tests.
TNT-mediated IMT in response to mitochondrial import failure is bidirectional. (A) Schematic of the co-culture system. (B) Top panel: Representative image of su9-mScarlet-DHFR (+MTX)-expressing mitochondria (import-defective, magenta) within a TNT. Bottom panel: Representative image of su9-EGFP-expressing mitochondria (import-competent, green) within a TNT. Scale bars 20 μm. (C) Quantification of 20 TNTs over N = 3 technical repeats of (i) TNT length, (ii) average TNT width, (iii) number of mitochondria in TNT, and (iv) length of each individual mitochondrion within TNTs. P values from unpaired two-tailed t tests. Mean lines shown on the graph. ID, import-defective; IC, import-competent.