Mitochondrial membranes are damaged by freezing and you will have damage to mitochondrial complex function, and oxidation phosphorylation if you freeze them. Fortunately, plant and also yeast mitochondria are much more resilient than mammalian mitochondria and they can survive a long time at 4C (6+ hrs).
I worked on mice and human mitochondria and different tissues and would like to say that freezing breaks the mitochondria and there is a great loss of intact mitochondria. Broken mitochondria can give erroneous results, with complex activities. Plant cell wall is rigid but the question is whether plant cell mitochondria is rigid too? I dont know.
Hi Ali,
I totally agree with the above comments on mitochondrial membrane breaking during freeze/thaw cycles.
However, I read a paper some years ago where the authors presented results on cryopreserved mitochondria that appeared to be completely functional. Here's the ref :
Briston T, et al. Sci Rep. 2016. (Identification of ER-000444793, a Cyclophilin D-independent inhibitor of mitochondrial permeability transition, using a high-throughput screen in cryopreserved mitochondria.)
Never tried it myself but I hope it will help you!
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