[Mitochondria in anaesthesia and intensive care].
OBJECTIVE
Mitochondria play a key role in energy metabolism within the cell through the oxidative phosphorylation. They are also involved in many cellular processes like apoptosis, calcium signaling or reactive oxygen species production. The objectives of this review are to understand the interactions between mitochondrial metabolism and anaesthetics or different stress situations observed in ICU and to know the clinical implications.


METHODS
References were obtained from PubMed data bank (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi) using the following keywords: mitochondria, anaesthesia, anaesthetics, sepsis, preconditioning, ischaemia, hypoxia.


RESULTS
Mitochondria act as a pharmacological target for the anaesthetic agents. The effects can be toxic like in the case of the local anaesthetics-induced myotoxicity. On the other hand, beneficial effects are observed in the anaesthetic-induced myocardial preconditioning. Mitochondrial metabolism could be disturbed in many critical situations (sepsis, chronic hypoxia, ischaemia-reperfusion injury). The study of the underlying mechanisms should allow to propose in the future new specific therapeutics.
Nouette-Gaulain
K
K
Département d'anesthésie-réanimation I, CHU Pellegrin, 33076 Bordeaux cedex, France.
Quinart
A
A
Letellier
T
T
Sztark
F
F
D000777:Anesthetics / Q000494:pharmacology*; D017209:Apoptosis; D006801:Humans; D008928:Mitochondria / Q000187:drug effects* / Q000378:metabolism*; D010766:Phosphorylation; D017382:Reactive Oxygen Species; D012151:Resuscitation; D015398:Signal Transduction
D000777:Anesthetics; D017382:Reactive Oxygen Species