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Brain cells exchange batteries

06.08.2016

The transmission of nerve impulses requires a lot of energy, so it is not surprising that many mitochondria sit in neurons - special organelles that are called the power stations of the cell. Outwardly, mitochondria look like membrane tanks, but inside and at the molecular level they are very complex: they are literally stuffed to capacity with a variety of enzymes that, with the help of oxygen, extract energy from the chemical bonds of various substances and convert it into the form of an ATP molecule - in this form, the energy of the cell easy to store and easy to use.

Mitochondria have their own DNA and can divide on their own, so there is no problem with their number. However, they, like everything else, wear out, age, cease to perform their functions as they should. And then the neuron simply gets rid of them: in 2014, an article was published that described how neurons “spit out” mitochondria that have become useless and how they are immediately absorbed by the service cells of the nervous system, astrocytes, whose task is to provide neurons with favorable conditions for work, in including removing a variety of molecular and cellular debris.

And then En Lo (Eng Lo) and Kazuhide Hayakawa (Kazuhide Hayakawa) from the General Hospital of Massachusetts thought that maybe the opposite is happening - that neurons can not only spit out mitochondria, but also absorb them into themselves. Moreover, even earlier, something similar was found in bone marrow stem cells and lung cells: under severe stress - for example, due to a wound - stem cells, being next to lung cells, give them their mitochondria.

If neurons really take foreign mitochondria, then this happens at a difficult moment for them, in case of damage, illness, etc. As we said, the conditions for work and well-being of neurons are provided by astrocytes, which feel if their wards are ill.

The immune protein CD38 is a wake-up call, and when mice were genetically engineered to overproduce CD38, the mice's astrocytes could be observed releasing their own normal, healthy mitochondria into the environment. The nutrient fluid, together with the “spit out” mitochondria, was then transferred to the dying neurons, which absorbed them during the day, gradually coming to their senses: the neurons had more energy (literally, in the form of ATP molecules), they lived longer and even formed new processes .

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