Hi everyone.
I am facing a very intriguing phenomenon. My immunofluorescence and confocal microscopy analyses showed a nucleus that is positive for MnSOD (which should be present only within mitochondria). Please, find attached representative images of cells stained for either nucleus or MnSOD positivity, along with the merged image.
Of note, it should be highlighted that the anti-SOD2 primary antiobody we used is extremely specific and that Western immunoblots showed only the specific band.
Did anyone else find MnSOD (SOD2) in the nucleus in some experimental or physiological condition?
Thanks a lot in advance.
Stefano Falone
Mitochondria can go into nucleus in some cell types, I guess cardiac cells. In that case you have to show that mitochondria are located within nucleus. Or MnSOD may be transported into nucleus. Based on the photo it matches the size of mitochondria in cytoplasm. So it might be possible. Check it out.
Thank You very much for Your precious help. I'll try to find out what is happening to my cells.
Stefano
1) Based on the micrographs you present here, I cannot say categorically that the nuclei are labeled. You need to provide micrographs taken at a higher magnification where we can convincingly see the mitochondrial labeling.
2) Have you tried different anti-MsSOD antibodies and do they show the same immunolabeling pattern?
3) Furthermore, if you are convinced that the nuclei are stained with you anti-MnSOD antibody, you need to unambiguously show it by Western blot analysis of a purified preparation of nuclei using the same antibody you used to immunolabel the cells.
4) I never read that mitochondria can go to the nucleus! These are large organelles that wouldn't pass the nuclear membrane.
I am trying to observe my slides through a confocal microscope in order to be sure that what I see by simple fluorescence microscopy is not a concetration of mitochondria on the surface of the nuclear envelope.
Thanx for all Your precious suggestions
Stefano
To Gilbert Keller:
I did not know about numtogenesis, however large amount of reports show that intact mitochondria localize in the nucleus under specific circumstances (Bloom, 1967; Brandes et al., 1965; Matsuyama and Suzuki, 1972; Bakeeva et al., 2001).
I will try to expand my knowledge about that.
Best regards
Stefano
Hi, im Dr. Cynthia Paz from the Atmospheric science and climate change Institute in México.
I am really interested in this particularly behavior, did you have any paper relate to this? or did you publish this results?
Thanks in advance
Dear Cynthia,
thanks for your kind message.
Sadly, we have not published those results and we did not find any explanation for such staining.
Should you think of any possible explanation, we are very open-minded :)
Thanks and have a nice day
Stefano
Dear Dr.,
yes, actually right now i´m working on a project with nanotechnology and risk evaluation, and we had the same exact result. We trace it to an uncommon behavior where, under extreme circunstantes, SOD can act as a transcription factor. We are now working on the experiments trying to solve the hypothesis.
I attached an article that speaks about it.
Hopefully i can hear from your work in the future.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms4446
Dear Cynthia,
I was aware of the observation of nuclear SOD1, but my original question was about detection of nuclear SOD2, which is quite unusual. SOD2 is mitochondrial and that arose the question whether mitochondrial material could be re-located to the nucleus.
However, I will re-look up for similar observation. You renewed my interest in this :)
My really best,
Stefano
Cannot remember which ab I was using. Most likely Abcam or Santa Cruz, followed by fluorescent secondary ab.
Article Mitochondria Enter the Nucleus (One Further Problem in Chron...
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