Overexpression of Mitochondrial Calcium Uniporter Causes Neuronal Death

Figure 1

MCU overexpression enhances mitochondrial Ca²⁺ uptake. (a) Representative images of cpVenus and CFP fluorescence in mouse primary cortical neurons cotransfected for 24 hours with 4mtD1cpV probe and either pcDNA3.1 as control (Ctrl) or pcDNA3.1-MCU-flag (MCU). The scale bars represent 10 μm. (b) cpVenus (thick line) and CFP (thin line) fluorescence intensity in neurons transfected as in (a), after KCl depolarization (50 mM). (c) Representative cpVenus/CFP ratio traces of neurons transfected as in (a), after KCl depolarization (50 mM). (d) Representative ratio traces and (e) relative ratio quantifications of neurons transfected as in (a), after KCl depolarization (50 mM). (f) Resting mitochondrial Ca²⁺ level of mouse primary cortical neurons cotransfected for 24 hours with 2mtGCaMP6m probe and either empty vector mCherry as control (Ctrl) or MCU-mCherry (MCU). Each measurement was performed in at least 30 neurons from 6 different preparations. compared to control. Detailed statistics are described in Table 1.

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