Differences in the products of mitochondrial protein synthesis in vivo in human and mouse cells and their potential use as markers for the mitochondrial genome in human-mouse somatic cell hybrids

The proteins synthesized in the mitochondria of mouse and human cells grown in tissue culture were examined by electrophoresis in polyacrylamide gels. The proteins were labelled by incubating the cells in the presence of [35S]methionine and an inhibitor of cytoplasmic protein synthesis (emetine or cycloheximide). A detailed comparison between the labelled products of mouse and human mitochondrial protein synthesis was made possible by developing radioautograms after exposure to slab-electrophoresis gels. Patterns obtained for different cell types of the same species were extremely similar, whereas reproducible differences were observed on comparison of the profiles obtained for mouse and human cells. Four human-mouse somatic cell hybrids were examined, and in each one only components corresponding to mouse mitochondrially synthesized proteins were detected.