The present invention relates to a method for the intercellular transfer of an amount of mitochondria isolated from a population of donor cells into a population of recipient cells.
Mitochondria activity is central to cell and tissue homeostasis. Mitochondrial dysfunction and the energy metabolism reprogramming it induces are the hallmarks of many genetic diseases. They also play a key role in tumor progression and resistance to therapy. These essential roles of mitochondria, added to their recently documented cell-cell transfer capacity, explain the current burst of interest they trigger. Here a methodology (MitoCeption) that allows the quantitative transfer of mitochondria, isolated from cell type A, to cell type B is described. Autors validated and quantified the effective mitochondria transfer on different cell types, by confocal imaging and flow cytometry.