Skip to main content
Fig. 2 | Journal of Neuroinflammation

Fig. 2

From: Mitochondrial damage and “plugging” of transport selectively in myelinated, small-diameter axons are major early events in peripheral neuroinflammation

Fig. 2

Inflammatory infiltration within peripheral nerve during EAN is associated with changes in mitochondrial distribution and axonal transport of mitochondria. a Polarized stationary mitochondria in axons of animals with either symptomatic or asymptomatic EAN are significantly shorter than in adjuvant controls (p < 0.0001, one-way ANOVA). a′ Focal accumulations of mitochondria are found primarily in small-diameter (mean ± SD = 3.34 ±  0.61 μm) axons; there was statistically significant difference between the total number of axons with detected accumulations found in adjuvant control (n = 6 animals) vs. EAN (n = 3 animals) groups (p < 0.001, Student’s t test. b The symptomatic phase of EAN is associated with focal accumulations of mitochondria (thin arrows), and these accumulate further over time (e.g., after 1 h, shown in b′, thick arrows), primarily by the addition of anterogradely trafficking healthy mitochondria, as observed by time-lapse imaging, in vivo. c In control axons, the density of polarized mitochondria tends to decrease with increasing caliber of axons (p < 0.0001, r2 = 0.16, Pearson correlation) indicating space restrictions for axonal mitochondrial transport in small-diameter axons. de″ Healthy axonal mitochondria are electrically polarized (i.e., they fluoresce red, TMRM+), appearing pale/white (white arrows) when they overlap with the blue fluorescence of CFP+ mitochondria. In animals with symptomatic EAN, some mitochondria become fragmented (short and round) but retain membrane potential (green arrows) whereas other mitochondria appear clearly damaged, not only appearing small and round, but also depolarized (TMRM, blue arrows). Such mitochondria appear immobile, remaining stationary at the site of damage for at least 1 h (blue arrows). Healthy mitochondria join the accumulations (red arrows) but appear to become trapped at the site of damage

Back to article page