Mitochondrial-Nuclear DNA Interactions Contribute to the Regulation of Nuclear Transcript Levels as Part of the Inter-Organelle Communication System

Nuclear and mitochondrial organelles must maintain a communication system. Loci on the mitochondrial genome were recently reported to interact with nuclear loci. To determine whether this is part of a DNA based communication system we used genome conformation capture to map the global network of DNA-DNA interactions between the mitochondrial and nuclear genomes (Mito-nDNA) in Saccharomyces cerevisiae cells grown under three different metabolic conditions. The interactions that form between mitochondrial and nuclear loci are dependent on the metabolic state of the yeast. Moreover, the frequency of specific mitochondrial - nuclear interactions (i.e. COX1-MSY1 and Q0182-RSM7) showed significant reductions in the absence of mitochondrial encoded reverse transcriptase machinery. Furthermore, these reductions correlated with increases in the transcript levels of the nuclear loci (MSY1 and RSM7). We propose that these interactions represent an inter-organelle DNA mediated communication system and that reverse transcription of mitochondrial RNA plays a role in this process

Electronic pathway in reaction centers from Rhodobacter sphaeroides and Chloroflexus aurantiacus

The reaction centers (RC) of Chloroflexus aurantiacus and Rhodobacter sphaeroidesH(M182)L mutant were investigated. Prediction for electron transfer (ET) at very low temperatures was also performed. To describe the kinetics of the C. aurantiacus RCs, the incoherent model of electron transfer was used. It was shown that the asymmetry in electronic coupling parameters must be included to explain the experiments. For the description of R. sphaeroidesH(M182)L mutant RCs, the coherent and incoherent models of electron transfer were used. These two models are discussed with regard to the observed electron transfer kinetics. It seems likely that the electron transfer asymmetry in R. sphaeroides RCs is caused mainly by the asymmetry in the free energy levels of L- and M-side cofactors. In the case of C. aurantiacus RCs, the unidirectionality of the charge separation can be caused mainly by the difference in the electronic coupling parameters in two branches

Free energy calculations: Approximate methods for biological macromolecules

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