Mitochondria are the mechanisms which power every animal cell, including human ones. When they don't function correctly, they can kill cells, like neurons, leading to Parkinson's or Alzheimer's diseases.
But they are very small -- only a few hundred nanometers -- and, until now, it was extremely difficult to study them in vitro to find ways to prevent them from malfunctioning and to discover better neuroprotectant drugs.
Now, a unique laser operating in the nanometer range at the Department of Energy's Sandia National Laboratories, has demonstrated the first-ever technique for studying the reactions of such ultrasmall biological organelles in their functioning state. The laser, using samples obtained from the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, has shown it can obtain clear signals from individual mitochondria in vitro.
Work to date has shown the biolaser (which recently won first place in the DOE's annual Basic Energy Sciences' competition for using light to quantify characteristics of anthrax spores) is able to measure mitochondrial size through unexpected bursts of light given up by each mitochondrion. The laser, using the same means, can also measure the swelling effect caused by the addition of calcium ions ( the reaction thought to be the agent of death for both mitochondria and their host cells.
This work has been driven by Sandia physicist Paul Gourley and Marcus Keep, a neurosurgeon professor at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Here are Gourley (left) and Keep looking at "a fanciful drawing of a mitochondrion by recently deceased Swedish artist Oscar Reutersvard." (Credit: Randy Montoya, UNM)
The researchers expect to introduce neuroprotectant drugs into experiments this month, and be able to test hundreds of possible protective substances daily instead of two or three formerly possible.
Please read the whole news release for more technical explanations.
Source: Sandia National Laboratories, September 23, 2003
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