The role of mitochondrial transport in energy metabolism.
Since mitochondria are closed spaces in the cell, metabolite traffic across the mitochondrial membrane is needed to accomplish energy metabolism. The mitochondrial carriers play this function by uniport, symport and antiport processes. We give here a survey of about 50 transport processes catalysed by more than 30 carriers with a survey of the methods used to investigate metabolite transport in isolated mammalian mitochondria. The role of mitochondria in metabolic pathways including ammoniogenesis, amino acid metabolism, mitochondrial shuttles etc. is also reported in more detail, mainly in the light of the existence of new transport processes.
Passarella
Salvatore
S
Dipartimento di Scienze Animali, Vegetali e dell'Ambiente, Università del Molise, Via De Sanctis, 86100 Campobasso, Italy. passarel@unimol.it
Atlante
Anna
A
Valenti
Daniela
D
de Bari
Lidia
L