title: Continuous culture of novel mitochondrial cells lacking nuclei.
abstract: We isolated stable cell lines, designated as mitochondrial cells, from cybrids obtained by fusing mitochondria-less HeLa cells with platelets from patients with Leigh syndrome, a subtype of mitochondrial encephalomyopathy. The cells contain a pathogenic point mutation, T9176C, in the mitochondrial DNA. Hematoxylin-eosin staining, confocal fluorescent microscopy and flow cytometry in fixed or living cells showed that the majority of these mitochondrial cells lack nuclear DNA and nuclei, but contain active mitochondria. Despite the absence of nuclear DNA, these cells can be continuously generated in culture. Therefore, it is likely that they arise from the minority of cells which possess a nucleus.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Tokyo Women's Medical University, 8-1, Kawada-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 162-8666, Japan. knakano@ped.twmu.ac.jp
authors.forename: Kazutoshi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Nakano
authors.forename: Ikuroh
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Ohsawa
authors.forename: Kumi
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yamagata
authors.forename: Tomohiro
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nakayama
authors.forename: Kaori
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sasaki
authors.forename: Mikako
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tarashima
authors.forename: Kayoko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Saito
authors.forename: Makiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Osawa
authors.forename: Shigeo
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ohta