Quantitative assays to measure the transport activity of the mitochondrial calcium uniporter in cell lines or Xenopus oocytes

Abstract

Summary: The mitochondrial calcium uniporter, which mediates mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake, regulates key cellular functions, including intracellular Ca2+ signaling, cell-fate determination, and mitochondrial bioenergetics. Here, we describe two complementary strategies to quantify the uniporter’s transport activity. First, we detail a mitochondrial Ca2+ radionuclide uptake assay in cultured cell lines. Second, we describe electrophysiological recordings of the uniporter expressed in Xenopus oocytes. These approaches enable a detailed kinetic analysis of the uniporter to link its molecular properties to physiological functions.For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Tsai and Tsai (2018) and Phillips et al. (2019).

Keywords

• Biophysics
• Cell Biology
• Cell-based Assays
• Molecular Biology