About this event
LearningWho can attend: Open to Graduate students, faculty, staff, adjunct faculty, post-docs.
Student: Sai Mogudala
Suprervisor: Dr. Aidan Brown
Abstract
Mitochondria are essential cellular organelles, popularly touted as the ‘powerhouses of the cell’ Mitochondria provide chemical energy and perform other crucial cell functions, such as metabolic regulation, assisting in cell death. Mitochondrial function requires sufficient levels of mitochondrial proteins. Proteins synthesized in the nucleus are imported by the mitochondria in two modes; while they are being translated from mRNA (co-translationally) and after translation is complete (post-translationally). Mitochondrial dynamics including fusion events that lengthen or branch a mitochondrial tube, and fission events that split a mitochondrial tube, allow proteins to be shared between different mitochondrial fragments. Our aim is to study how modes of protein delivery and mitochondrial dynamics regulate fluctuations in protein concentration within mitochondria, as lower mitochondrial proteins can impair mitochondrial health and function. We have developed a stochastic simulation including mRNA production and decay; protein production, decay and delivery; mitochondrial fusion and fission dynamics; and sharing of proteins between connected mitochondria. We use this simulation to measure the fraction of time mitochondrial protein levels fall below a threshold concentration. We find that faster diffusion of proteins through the mitochondrial network, higher fusion rate and lower fission rates reduce variation in protein concentration between mitochondria. Post-translational protein delivery also leads to far lower variation in protein concentration between mitochondria, compared to co-translational delivery. Overall, we find that protein delivery and mitochondrial dynamics greatly affect the uniformity of protein levels in mitochondria, suggesting that delivery and dynamics will affect dysfunction rooted in insufficient mitochondrial protein levels.