Artificial Mitochondria Transfer: Current Challenges, Advances, and Future Applications

Figure 2

Artificial mitochondria transfer (AMT) and transplant. Different techniques emerged to mimic the natural transfer or mitochondria on its in vivo and in vitro applications. The coincubation technique was the first proposed in which the antibiotic resistance carried in the mitochondrial DNA was passed to sensitive cells [9], later after the technique was used to rescue respiratory deficient cells among other damaged cells [10, 11, 14, 63]. Microinjection of exogenous mitochondria was applied in assays to eliminate the endogenous copies of oocytes carrying mitochondrial diseases [90, 93]. The photothermal nanoblade effectively transferred isolated mitochondria inside the cell; even if they showed great effectiveness, its application is limited to small cell numbers [12]. Two different approaches were developed to facilitate the mitochondria internalization in the recipient cells, the first is by using Pep-1 and the other with magnetic beads (Magnetomitotransfer) designed to bind to TOM22 a receptor complex in the mitochondrial membrane. The MitoCeption technique uses a thermic shock and a centrifugation to improve the process of mitochondria uptake; first applied in cancer cells, this technique induces the metabolic reprogramming of these cells. The in vivo application of the mitochondria transfer applies two approaches: the first is to directly inject mitochondria to the harmed tissue and the other in the circulatory system close to the area of interest. Both of them have shown to restore tissue function but the in situ injection showed better results [16, 49, 50].