The DOI matches its Crossref record; 60 of the 60 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Mitochondrial Fusion in Human Cells Is Efficient, Requires the Inner Membrane Potential, and Is Mediated by Mitofusins
Open accessAbstract
Mitochondrial fusion remains a largely unknown process despite its observation by live microscopy and the identification of few implicated proteins. Using green and red fluorescent proteins targeted to the mitochondrial matrix, we show that mitochondrial fusion in human cells is efficient and achieves complete mixing of matrix contents within 12 h. This process is maintained in the absence of a functional respiratory chain, despite disruption of microtubules or after significant reduction of cellular ATP levels. In contrast, mitochondrial fusion is completely inhibited by protonophores that dissipate the inner membrane potential. This inhibition, which results in rapid fragmentation of mitochondrial filaments, is reversible: small and punctate mitochondria fuse to reform elongated and interconnected ones upon withdrawal of protonophores. Expression of wild-type or dominant-negative dynamin-related protein 1 showed that fragmentation is due to dynamin-related protein 1-mediated mitochondrial division. On the other hand, expression of mitofusin 1 (Mfn1), one of the human Fzo homologues, increased mitochondrial length and interconnectivity. This process, but not Mfn1 targeting, was dependent on the inner membrane potential, indicating that overexpressed Mfn1 stimulates fusion. These results show that human mitochondria represent a single cellular compartment whose exchanges and interconnectivity are dynamically regulated by the balance between continuous fusion and fission reactions.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Wessel, D., & Flügge, U. I. (1984) · Analytical Biochemistry · doi:10.1016/0003-2697(84)90782-6 · Cited by 4,028
Close Contacts with the Endoplasmic Reticulum as Determinants of Mitochondrial Ca 2+ Responses
Rizzuto, R., Pinton, P., Carrington, W., Fay, F. S., Fogarty, K. E., Lifshitz, L. M., Tuft, R. A., & Pozzan, T. (1998) · Science · doi:10.1126/science.280.5370.1763 · Cited by 2,257
Dynamin-related Protein Drp1 Is Required for Mitochondrial Division in Mammalian Cells
Smirnova, E., Griparic, L., Shurland, D.-L., & van der Bliek, A. M. (2001) · Molecular Biology of the Cell · doi:10.1091/mbc.12.8.2245 · Cited by 1,933
The Role of Dynamin-Related Protein 1, a Mediator of Mitochondrial Fission, in Apoptosis
Frank, S., Gaume, B., Bergmann-Leitner, E. S., Leitner, W. W., Robert, E. G., Catez, F., Smith, C. L., & Youle, R. J. (2001) · Developmental Cell · doi:10.1016/s1534-5807(01)00055-7 · Cited by 1,755
Smiley, S. T., Reers, M., Mottola-Hartshorn, C., Lin, M., Chen, A., Smith, T. W., Steele, G. D., & Chen, L. B. (1991) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.88.9.3671 · Cited by 1,628
Membrane Fusion and Exocytosis
Jahn, R., & Südhof, T. C. (1999) · Annual Review of Biochemistry · doi:10.1146/annurev.biochem.68.1.863 · Cited by 1,259
Gichner, T. (1982) · Biologia Plantarum · doi:10.1007/bf02909099 · Cited by 1,181
Major nucleolar proteins shuttle between nucleus and cytoplasm
Borer, R. A., Lehner, C. F., Eppenberger, H. M., & Nigg, E. A. (1989) · Cell · doi:10.1016/0092-8674(89)90241-9 · Cited by 1,114
PROTEIN IMPORT INTO MITOCHONDRIA
Neupert, W. (1997) · Annual Review of Biochemistry · doi:10.1146/annurev.biochem.66.1.863 · Cited by 1,057
Control of mitochondrial morphology by a human mitofusin
Santel, A., & Fuller, M. T. (2001) · Journal of Cell Science · doi:10.1242/jcs.114.5.867 · Cited by 1,012
Cited by
Parkin is recruited selectively to impaired mitochondria and promotes their autophagy
Narendra, D., Tanaka, A., Suen, D.-F., & Youle, R. J. (2008) · The Journal of Cell Biology · doi:10.1083/jcb.200809125 · Cited by 4,026
Fission and selective fusion govern mitochondrial segregation and elimination by autophagy
Twig, G., Elorza, A., Molina, A. J. A., Mohamed, H., Wikstrom, J. D., Walzer, G., Stiles, L., Haigh, S. E., Katz, S., Las, G., et al. (2008) · The EMBO Journal · doi:10.1038/sj.emboj.7601963 · Cited by 3,082
Calcium, ATP, and ROS: a mitochondrial love-hate triangle
Brookes, P. S., Yoon, Y., Robotham, J. L., Anders, M. W., & Sheu, S.-S. (2004) · American Journal of Physiology-Cell Physiology · doi:10.1152/ajpcell.00139.2004 · Cited by 2,575
Mitochondria: Dynamic Organelles in Disease, Aging, and Development
Chan, D. C. (2006) · Cell · doi:10.1016/j.cell.2006.06.010 · Cited by 1,987
OPA1 Controls Apoptotic Cristae Remodeling Independently from Mitochondrial Fusion
Frezza, C., Cipolat, S., Martins de Brito, O., Micaroni, M., Beznoussenko, G. V., Rudka, T., Bartoli, D., Polishuck, R. S., Danial, N. N., De Strooper, B., et al. (2006) · Cell · doi:10.1016/j.cell.2006.06.025 · Cited by 1,673
Metadata
- Authors
- Legros, F., Lombès, A., Frachon, P., & Rojo, M.
- Venue
- Molecular Biology of the Cell
- Published
- 2002-12
- Volume
- 13
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 4343-4354
- ISSN
- 1059-1524 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-4586
- OpenAlex
- W2164174765
- Cited by
- 675
- References
- 60
- FWCI
- 6.16
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Mitochondrial Fusion in Human Cells Is Efficient, Requires the Inner Membrane Potential, and Is Mediated by Mitofusins. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1091/mbc.e02-06-0330
- The paper
- Legros, F., Lombès, A., Frachon, P., & Rojo, M. (2002). Mitochondrial Fusion in Human Cells Is Efficient, Requires the Inner Membrane Potential, and Is Mediated by Mitofusins. Molecular Biology of the Cell. https://doi.org/10.1091/mbc.e02-06-0330
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
