Mitochondrial Function and Cell Size: An Allometric Relationship.

Allometric scaling of metabolic rate results in lower total mitochondrial oxygen consumption with increasing organismal size. This is considered a universal law in biology. Here, we discuss how allometric laws impose size-dependent limits to mitochondrial activity at the cellular level. This cell-size-dependent mitochondrial metabolic activity results in nonlinear scaling of metabolism in proliferating cells, which can explain size homeostasis. The allometry in mitochondrial activity can be controlled through mitochondrial fusion and fission machinery, suggesting that mitochondrial connectivity can bypass transport limitations, the presumed biophysical basis for allometry. As physical size affects cellular functionality, cell-size-dependent metabolism becomes directly relevant for development, metabolic diseases, and aging.

• Publication year

  2017

• Venue

  Trends in Cell Biology

• Publication date

  2017-06-01

• Fields of study

  Biology, Medicine

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1016/j.tcb.2017.02.006PMID 28284466
• 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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