Two Types of Contact Between Lipid Droplets and Mitochondria

Liujuan Cui; Pingsheng Liu

doi:10.3389/fcell.2020.618322

Two Types of Contact Between Lipid Droplets and Mitochondria

Front Cell Dev Biol. 2020 Dec 15:8:618322. doi: 10.3389/fcell.2020.618322. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Liujuan Cui¹, Pingsheng Liu^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, CAS Center for Excellence in Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
² University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.

Abstract

Lipid droplets (LDs) and mitochondria are essential organelles involved in cellular lipid metabolism and energy homeostasis. Accumulated studies have revealed that the physical contact between these two organelles is important for their functions. Current understanding of the contact between cellular organelles is highly dynamic, fitting a "kiss-and-run" model. The same pattern of contact between LDs and mitochondria has been reported and several proteins are found to mediate this contact, such as perilipin1 (PLIN1) and PLIN5. Another format of the contact has also been found and termed anchoring. LD-anchored mitochondria (LDAM) are identified in oxidative tissues including brown adipose tissue (BAT), skeletal muscle, and heart muscle, and this anchoring between these two organelles is conserved from mouse to monkey. Moreover, this anchoring is generated during the brown/beige adipocyte differentiation. In this review, we will summarize previous studies on the interaction between LDs and mitochondria, categorize the types of the contacts into dynamic and stable/anchored, present their similarities and differences, discuss their potential distinct molecular mechanism, and finally propose a working hypothesis that may explain why and how cells use two patterns of contact between LDs and mitochondria.

Keywords: anchor; centrifugal force; contact; isolation; lipid droplets; mitochondria.

Publication types

Review