Drosophila HS dendrites are resilient to adult-onset deficits in mitochondrial dynamics

Mitochondrial transport, fusion, and fission are necessary for neuronal development, but the role of mitochondrial dynamics in neuronal maintenance remains unclear. In this work, we employed functional in vivo imaging of neurons in the Drosophila visual system, HS (“horizontal system”) cells, to determine how adult-onset deficits in mitochondrial dynamics affect mitochondrial localization, local regulation of ATP, and dendrite maintenance. In mature HS neurons, inhibition of mitochondrial transport or fusion depleted mitochondria from the dendrite over time but, surprisingly, had no effect on dendrite morphology. Moreover, adult-restricted mitochondrial mis- localization affected neither visual stimulus-driven dendritic calcium responses nor local, dynamic regulation of ATP levels. In contrast, when induced during development, the same perturbations caused mitochondrial mis-localization, loss of dendrite complexity, abrogation of stimulus-locked calcium responses and ATP fluctuations, and age-dependent dendrite degeneration. Thus, although mitochondrial dynamics are necessary during neuronal development, mature dendrites are capable of maintaining form and function in vivo in the absence of properly-positioned mitochondria.

• Publication year

  2025

• Venue

  bioRxiv

• Publication date

  2025-11-09

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1101/2025.11.07.687201PMID 41280026PMCID 12637675
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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