image: Cells with primed mitochondria are more sensitive to chemotherapy than those with unprimed mitochondria. Cells may have relatively primed (glowing red) or unprimed (brown) mitochondria. Normal cells (blue) tend to have relatively unprimed mitochondria, and thus survive chemotherapy, as do cancer cells (green) with unprimed mitochondria. In cancer cells with relatively primed mitochondria, however, death signaling induced by chemotherapy causes mitchondrial outer membrane permeabilization (middle panel) and cell death (right panel). The measurement of how primed mitochondria are before treatment can be performed with BH3 profiling. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the Oct. 27, 2011, issue of Science Express, published by AAAS. The paper, by T. Ni Chonghaile of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, MA, and colleagues, was titled, “Pretreatment Mitochondrial Priming Correlates with Clinical Response to Cytotoxic Chemotherapy.” view more
Credit: Image courtesy of Richard Oakley/Thanh-Trang Vo