Research Article

Enhancement of Mitochondrial Transfer by Antioxidants in Human Mesenchymal Stem Cells

Figure 2

Mitochondria transfer was enhanced in hMSCs after MCA treatment. (a) Representative images of mitochondria transfer to H2O2-treated hMSCs from hMSCs with (right panel) or without (left panel) MCA treatment. The MitoTracker Red-labeled mitochondria from the healthy hMSCs were also clearly seen in TNT formed between the recipient and donor (inset i). Both MitoTracker Red- and Green-labeled mitochondria were found in the recipient cells (inset ii). The Pearson correlation coefficient are also shown to demonstrate the colocalization of the MitoTracker Red and Green labelled mitochondria after coculture [30]. The results showed that the colocalization coefficient in the (ii) of upper panel (24 h coculture of control hMSCs and H2O2-treated hMSCs) is 0.594, while that in the (ii) of lower panel (24 h coculture of MCA-treated hMSCs and H2O2-treated hMSCs) is 0.908. The colocalization coefficient can be further represented as pseudocolor changes: orange dots represent highly overlapping, while purple dots represent no overlapping. A 2.5-dimensional fluorescence reconstruction analysis of the respective images in (a) further confirmed that the red fluorescence was predominantly found in the TNT form between MCA-treated hMSCs and H2O2-treated hMSCs (b). Scale bar: 20 μm.
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