Small scale preparation of skeletal muscle mitochondria, criteria of integrity, and assays with reference to tissue function

Mitochondria prepared in small scale from skeletal muscle were studied with respiration measurements and low temperature spectroscopy. The method of preparation was developed for 25-100 mg tissue with pigeon breast muscle as model organ. The yield was 40%. Data collected during the developmental work were used to evaluate criteria of mitochondrial quality. The cytochrome c conservation, i.e. cytochrome c per mitochondrial quantity in the preparation relative to that in the tissue, is a most useful test parameter. It is bounded between 0-100%. Proportionality between the state 3 rate and the cytochrome c conservation was not rejected by statistical tests. The respiratory control ratio (RCR) was also highly correlated to the cytochrome c conservation. These correlations might be extrapolated to 100% conservation to give hypothetical tissue values. The cause for the correlations is discussed. The P/O ratio showed only weak dependence on the cytochrome c conservation and the state 4 rate showed no dependence. Other, rather insensitive test parameters are also discussed. The pigeon breast muscle mitochondria isolated by the final method showed cytochrome c conservation of 73 +/- 9% (n = 16). They are compared with pig biceps femoris mitochondria prepared by the same method. The two types of mitochondria show many similarities. Some differences may be explained by a different amount of inner mitochondrial membrane relative to mitochondrial protein. The pig tissue contains ten times less mitochondrial protein than the pigeon tissue does.