Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Immunohistochemical analysis of the oxidative phosphorylation complexes in skeletal muscle from patients with mitochondrial DNA encoded tRNA gene defects
  1. B De Paepe1,
  2. J Smet1,
  3. M Lammens2,
  4. S Seneca3,
  5. J-J Martin4,
  6. J De Bleecker5,
  7. L De Meirleir1,
  8. W Lissens3,
  9. R Van Coster1
  1. 1
    Department of Pediatric Neurology & Metabolism, University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium
  2. 2
    Department of Pathology, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
  3. 3
    Center for Medical Genetics, University Hospital, Brussels, Belgium
  4. 4
    Department of Neuropathology & Born Bunge Institute, University Hospital, Antwerp, Belgium
  5. 5
    Department of Neurology, University Hospital, Ghent, Belgium
  1. Dr B De Paepe, Department of Pediatric Neurology and Metabolism, UZ 3K5, De Pintelaan 185, B9000 Ghent, Belgium; boel.depaepe{at}ugent.be

Abstract

Background: Mitochondrial diseases display a heterogeneous spectrum of clinical phenotypes and therefore the identification of the underlying gene defect is often a difficult task.

Aims: To develop an immunohistochemical approach to stain skeletal muscle for the five multi-protein complexes that organise the oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) in order to improve the diagnostic workup of mitochondrial defects.

Methods: OXPHOS complexes were visualised in skeletal muscle tissue using antibodies directed against different subunits. The staining patterns of patients with heteroplasmic defects in mtDNA tRNA genes were compared with those of normal and disease controls.

Results: Normal skeletal muscle displayed a checkerboard staining pattern for complexes I to V due to the higher mitochondrial content of slow muscle fibres versus fast fibres. In patients with tRNA defects, a much more heterogeneous staining pattern was observed for complex I (all six patients) and complex IV (4 of 6 patients): a mosaic staining pattern in which individual fibres displayed staining intensities that ranged from strong to negative. Ragged red fibres (RRFs) in patients with MERRF (myoclonic epilepsy and ragged red fibres) were all complex I and IV negative, while in patient with MELAS (mitochondrial myopathy, encephalopathy, lactic acidosis and stroke-like episodes) the majority of RRFs were complex I negative and complex IV positive.

Conclusion: Immunohistochemical detection of OXPHOS complexes could represent a valuable additional diagnostic tool for the evaluation of mitochondrial cytopathy. The technique helps to detect heteroplasmic mtDNA defects. Staining for complex I in particular was able to identify two tRNA patients that stayed undetected with routine histochemical evaluation.

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Footnotes

  • Funding: This study was supported by grants from the Fund for Scientific Research Flanders (G.0666.06), Association belge contre les maladies neuromusculaires (ABMM) and KidAuQuai.

  • Competing interests: None.

  • Ethics approval: Ethics approval was obtained.