Segmentation of wet elongated mitochondria into spheres.
Wet replication studies of potato mitochondria suggest that these mitochondria are basically elongated organelles of length 3-6 micron and width 0.5-0.9 micron. However due to unnatural extracellular and environmental conditions these mitochondria are subject to spontaneous segmentation or fission to yield organelles of smaller forms, and finally to round mitochondria, the diameter of which equals the width of the segmenting mitochondria. Only these reduced, round mitochondria are found as spherical mitochondria by the critical-point drying technique. Whereas this segmentation behavior of mitochondria points out the need for further improvement of the wet replication technique, it poses a serious issue: perhaps the real, undisputed shape and size of mitochondria remain to be determined.
D006652:Histological Techniques; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D011198:Solanum tuberosum / Q000166:cytology / Q000648:ultrastructure