Meeting Abstract
Mitochondria play a central role in energy provisioning, redox and Ca 2+ homeostasis, signaling and life-death decisions. Animal mitochondria are extremely sensitive to the direct and indirect effects of environmental stressors, and mitochondrial injury and dysfunction are common causes of pathology caused by hypoxia, temperature stress, toxins or metal overload. Mitochondrial sensitivity to external disturbances raises an important and as yet unresolved question: how is the mitochondrial function and integrity maintained in animals adapted to extreme environments where the ambient conditions fluctuate strongly, frequently and unpredictably within the life cycle of an individual? Intertidal organisms represent excellent models to study the mitochondrial adaptations to stress as they inhabit one of the most physically challenging environments on Earth characterized by strong fluctuations in temperature, salinity, oxygen concentration, pH, desiccation and hydrodynamic forces. We will present the current state of knowledge on the mitochondrial responses to environmental stressors (including intermittent hypoxia, temperature, salinity, pH and toxic metals) in marine intertidal mollusks, identify the mitochondrial mechanisms that may set limit to the organism’s stress tolerance and discuss the potential future research directions to pinpoint the sensitive mitochondrial targets and adaptive mechanisms to extreme stress. Investigations of the mitochondrial adaptations of animal extremophiles can shed important light on the evolution of metabolism in extreme environments and help identify potential targets for future therapies to protect sensitive mammalian tissues from stress-induced injuries (e.g. during ischemia-reperfusion or metal overload).
