Quenching or Misalignment? Confocal Microscopy Onset of the Mitochondrial Permeability Transition in Cultured Hepatocytes

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INTRODUCTION: The mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT) has been implicated in mediating both necrotic and apoptotic cell death. Opening of the permeability transition pore in the mitochondrial inner membrane causes the MPT. Previously, our laboratory developed a method to detect the MPT in cultured hepatocytes by visualizing redistribution of calcein fluorescence from the cytosol into the mitochondria after permeability transition pore opening, using confocal microscopy. (1). However, a recent paper suggests that unstained mitochondria are unlikely to be detected against bright cytosolic signal, because fluorescence spreading magnifies the size of emitting objects while reducing that of dark spot (2). Rather, it was suggested that dark mitochondrial voids in green calcein images were the result of fluorescent quenching by concurrent use of a red-fluorescing mitochondrial dye, tetramethylrhodamine (TMRM). The AIMS of the present study were to determine 1) whether small voids can be visualized in the absence of any potential quenching agent; 2) whether quenching can produce dark mitochondrial voids and 3) the importance of alignment in visualizing mitochondria as negative contrast by confocal microscopy. METHODS: Overnight cultured rat hepatocytes were used. To load calcein exclusively into cytosolic space, hepatocytes were incubated with 1 μM calcein AM for 15 min at 37°C. To load calcein into both cytosol and mitochondria, cells were incubated with 1 μM calcein AM for 1 hour at 4°C.