Differential impact of mitochondrial positioning on mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake and Ca2+ spark suppression in skeletal muscle

Muscle contraction requires ATP and Ca2+ and, thus, is under direct control of mitochondria and the sarcoplasmic reticulum. During postnatal skeletal muscle maturation, the mitochondrial network exhibits a shift from a longitudinal (“longitudinal mitochondria”) to a mostly transversal orientation as a result of a progressive increase in mitochondrial association with Ca2+ release units (CRUs) or triads (“triadic mitochondria”). To determine the physiological implications of this shift in mitochondrial disposition, we used confocal microscopy to monitor activity-dependent changes in myoplasmic (fluo 4) and mitochondrial (rhod 2) Ca2+ in single flexor digitorum brevis (FDB) fibers from 1- to 4-mo-old mice. A robust and sustained Ca2+ accumulation in triadic mitochondria was triggered by repetitive tetanic stimulation (500 ms, 100 Hz, every 2.5 s) in FDB fibers from 4-mo-old mice. Specifically, mitochondrial rhod 2 fluorescence increased 272 ± 39% after a single tetanus and 412 ± 45% after five tetani and decayed slowly over 10 min following the final tetanus. Similar results were observed in fibers expressing mitochondrial pericam, a mitochondrial-targeted ratiometric Ca2+ indicator. Interestingly, sustained mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake following repetitive tetanic stimulation was similar for triadic and longitudinal mitochondria in FDB fibers from 1-mo-old mice, and both mitochondrial populations were found by electron microscopy to be continuous and structurally tethered to the sarcoplasmic reticulum. Conversely, the frequency of osmotic shock-induced Ca2+ sparks per CRU density decreased threefold (from 3.6 ± 0.2 to 1.2 ± 0.1 events·CRU−1·min−1·100 μm−2) during postnatal development in direct linear correspondence (r2 = 0.95) to an increase in mitochondrion-CRU pairing. Together, these results indicate that mitochondrion-CRU association promotes Ca2+ spark suppression but does not significantly impact mitochondrial Ca2+ uptake.