Abstract
Mitochondria form dynamic networks which adapt to the environmental requirements of the cell. We investigated the aging process of these networks in human skin cells in vivo by multiphoton microscopy. A study on the age-dependency of the mitochondrial network in young and old volunteers revealed that keratinocytes in old skin establish a significantly more fragmented network with smaller and more compact mitochondrial clusters than keratinocytes in young skin. Furthermore, we investigated the mitochondrial network during differentiation processes of keratinocytes within the epidermis of volunteers. We observe a fragmentation similar to the age-dependent study in almost all parameters. These parallels raise questions about the dynamics of biophysical network structures during aging processes.
MeSH terms
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Aged
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Aging / metabolism
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Aging / pathology*
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Humans
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Keratinocytes / metabolism
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Keratinocytes / pathology*
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Microscopy, Fluorescence, Multiphoton
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Mitochondria / metabolism
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Mitochondria / pathology*
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NAD / metabolism
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Skin / metabolism
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Skin / pathology*
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Young Adult
Grants and funding
This work was supported by Foundation of German Business: DM. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Beiersdorf AG and DFG by Ru 773/6-2 provided support in the form of salaries for authors DM, MS, SPJ, SJ, HW and FF, but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section. DM acknowledges financial support by the Germany Economy Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.