Isolation of functionally intact pig retina mitochondria

ABSTRACT. Two alternative methods for the isolation of functionally intact mitochondria from pig retina were evaluated by means of differen- tial centrifugation. If ATP and bovine serum albumin were present dur- ing the isolation procedures mitochondria exhibited ADP sensitive res- piration and membrane potentials, comparable to values from other tis- sues. The mitochondria fraction of both methods differed in purity, being almost free of synaptosomes when a discontinuous Ficoll gradient cen- trifugation was used. Key words: retina mitochondria - respiration - membrane potential. methods of Ciman et al. (1992) and Lombardini (1988) were modified in order to obtain functionally active and highly purified mitochondria1 frac- tions. Two variants of the preparation scheme are proposed, both of which result in the isolation of functionally in- tact retina mitochondria with ADP sensitive respiration and membrane potential (A?), but variable purity. Acta Ophthalmol. Scand. 1996: 74 354-357