Mitochondrial lipid peroxidation is central to cell death by ferroptosis in many pathologies including cardiovascular disease. However, measuring this process is challenging. As part of a Wellcome Trust-funded collaboration led by Mike Murphy at the MRC Mitochondrial Biology Unit and Richard Hartley at Glasgow, this has been addressed by developing a mitochondria-targeted Mass Spectrometry probe, MitoLiPox.
In this work, led by Shinpei Uno, with collaborators including David Rubinsztein and Angie Fleming, and published in Cell Chemical Biology, the researchers showed that this new probe can be used to assess mitochondrial lipid peroxidation and ferroptosis in cells and zebrafish embryos. This approach will facilitate future developments in exploring cell death and mitochondrial dysfunction ina wide range of cell and in vivo models.