A navigation chart to avoid turbulence in Drosophila mitochondrial research

Summary

Drosophila fruit flies have been used as a valuable, cheap, and powerful model organism to understand fundamental biological processes for many years. However, standardized methodologies specifically designed to assess mitochondrial physiology in this model are not available. Rodríguez and colleagues provided a detailed analysis of publicly available protocols to assess mitochondrial physiology in Drosophila melanogaster and performed experiments in flight muscles to address three technical parameters to define the optimal conditions for respirometry. The authors show that oxygen diffusion is not limited to sustaining respiratory capacity in either isolated mitochondria or chemically permeabilized fibers. In addition, chemical permeabilization was revealed as the best approach to assess mitochondrial physiology in fruit flies. Finally, the authors demonstrate that magnesium green is the only fluorescent probe that caused no effects on respiratory rates. Methodological standardization to study Drosophila mitochondrial physiology, as presented by Rodríguez and colleagues, represents a critical step towards more reproducible and comparative metabolic research in this important model organism.

Cite:

Oliveira MF, Aveiro Y, Couto-Lima CA (2023) A navigation chart to avoid turbulence in Drosophila mitochondrial research. Bioenerg Commun 2023.4. https://doi.org/10.26124/bec:2023-0004