Abstract
Mitochondria involve cellular activities including ATP synthesis, ROS generation and apoptosis. When mitochondria are elongated, mitochondria prompt ATP synthesis. On the other hand, when fragmented, mitochondria prompt apoptosis. The latter fragmented morphologies are typically observed in endothelial cells under endothelial dysfunction. Mitochondria are physically linked with cytoskeletons. When cytoskeletons alter, mitochondria are forced to alter their morphologies. Under uniaxial cyclic stretches, endothelial cells alter their cytoskeletons. Thus, it is supposed that mitochondria are forced to alter their morphologies under the uniaxial cyclic stretches. However, it remains elusive whether and how cyclic stretches alter morphologies of mitochondria. To answer this question, morphological dynamics of mitochondria in human aortic endothelial cells (HAECs) were time-lapse imaged under uniaxial cyclic stretches. Stretch proportion was set to 20% as a supra-physiologic level cyclic stretches. Under the cyclic stretches, mitochondria decreased their lengths. This result indicates that cyclic stretches alter mitochondria morphologies with supra- physiologic level stretch proportion.
