Selective and Reversible Disruption of Mitochondrial Inner Membrane Protein Complexes by Lipophilic Cations

Abstract

ABSTRACTMitochondria represent an attractive drug target in the treatment of many diseases. One of the most commonly used approaches to deliver therapeutics specifically into mitochondria is their conjugation to the triphenylphosphonium (TPP) moiety. While the TPP molecule is often regarded as biologically inert, there is evidence that the moiety itself has a significant impact on the activity of mitochondrial respiratory chain complexes.We studied the impact of a subchronic exposure of C2C12 mouse myoblasts to a set of TPP derivatives. Our results show that the alkyl-TPP cause dose- and hydrophobicity-dependent alterations of mitochondrial morphology and a selective decrease in the amounts of mitochondrial inner membrane (but not outer membrane) proteins including structural subunits of the respiratory chain complexes (such as MT-CO1 of complex IV or NDUFB8 of complex I), as well as components of the mitochondrial calcium uniporter complex (MCUC). The treatment with alkyl-TPP additionally resulted in OPA1-cleavage. Both the structural and functional effects of alkyl-TPP were found to be reversible. A similar effect was observed with the mitochondria-targeted antioxidant MitoQ. We further show that this effect on protein levels cannot be explained solely by a decrease in mitochondrial membrane potential.We conclude that TPP derivatives negatively affect mitochondrial structure and function at least in part through their effect on selective mitochondrial membrane protein levels via a reversible controlled process.