Senescence is coupled to induction of an oxidative phosphorylation stress response by mitochondrial DNA mutations in Neurospora

In Neurospora and other genera of filamentous fungi, the occurrence of a mutation affecting one or several genes on the chromosome of a single mitochondrion can trigger the gradual displacement of wild-type mitochondrial DNA by mutant molecules in asexually propagated cultures. As this displacement progresses, the cultures senesce gradually and die if the mitochondrial mutation is lethal, or develop respiratory deficiencies if the mutation is nonlethal. Mitochondrial mutations that elicit the displacement of wild-type mitochondrial DNAs are said to be "suppressive." In the strictly aerobic fungi, suppressiveness appears to be associated exclusively with mutations that diminish cytochrome-mediated mitochondrial redox functions and, thus, curtail oxidative phosphorylation. In Neurospora, suppressiveness is connected to a regulatory system through which cells respond to chemical or genetic insults to the mitochondrial electron-transport system by increasing the number of mitochondria approximately threefold. Mutant alleles of two nuclear genes, osr-1 and osr-2, affect this stress response and abrogate the suppressiveness of mitochondrial mutations. Therefore, we propose that mitochondrial mutations are suppressive because their phenotypic effect is limited to the organelles within which the mutant DNA is located. Consequently, mitochondria that are "homozygous" for a mutant allele are functionally crippled and are induced to proliferate more rapidly than the normal mitochondria with which they coexist in a common protoplasm. While this model provides a plausible explanation for the suppressiveness of mitochondrial mutations in the strictly aerobic fungi, it may not account for the biased transmission of mutant mitochondrial DNAs in the facultatively anaerobic yeasts. Key words: mitochondria, mitochondrial DNA, mutations, suppressiveness, oxidative phosphorylation, stress response.