Mitochondrial type II NAD(P)H dehydrogenases in fungal cell death

Authors:

Pedro Gonçalves1,2,4, Arnaldo Videira1,2,3
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Affiliations:

1 ICBAS-Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas de Abel Salazar, Universidade do Porto, Rua de Jorge Viterbo Ferreira 228, 4050-313 Porto, Portugal.

2 IBMC-Instituto de Biologia Molecular e Celular – Universidade do Porto, Rua do Campo Alegre 823, 4150-180 Porto, Portugal.

3 Instituto de Investigação e Inovação em Saúde, Universidade do Porto, Portugal.

4 Current address: Plant and Microbial Biology Department, The University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.

Keywords: 

alternative NAD(P)H dehydrogenases, fungi, programmed cell death, ROS

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Corresponding Author(s):

A. Pedro Gonçalves, Plant and Microbial Biology Department, The University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA antoniopedrocardoso@gmail.com Arnaldo Videira, ICBAS-Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas de Abel Salazar, Universidade do Porto, Rua de Jorge Viterbo Ferreira 228, 4050-313 Porto, Portugal avideira@ibmc.up.pt

Conflict of interest statement:

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Please cite this article as:

A. Pedro Gonçalves, Arnaldo Videira (2015). Mitochondrial type II NAD(P)H dehydrogenases in fungal cell death. Microbial Cell 2(3): 68-73.

© 2015 Gonçalves and Videira. This is an open-access article released under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license, which allows the unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are acknowledged.

Abstract:

During aerobic respiration, cells produce energy through oxidative phosphorylation, which includes a specialized group of multi-subunit complexes in the inner mitochondrial membrane known as the electron transport chain. However, this canonical pathway is branched into single polypeptide alternative routes in some fungi, plants, protists and bacteria. They confer metabolic plasticity, allowing cells to adapt to different environmental conditions and stresses. Type II NAD(P)H dehydrogenases (also called alternative NAD(P)H dehydrogenases) are non-proton pumping enzymes that bypass complex I. Recent evidence points to the involvement of fungal alternative NAD(P)H dehydrogenases in the process of programmed cell death, in addition to their action as overflow systems upon oxidative stress. Consistent with this, alternative NAD(P)H dehydrogenases are phylogenetically related to cell death – promoting proteins of the apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF)-family.

doi: 10.15698/mic2015.03.192
Volume 2, pp. 68 to 73, published 02/03/2015.