FIGURE 5. Specific functions of cardiolipin are linked to developmental processes.

Cardiolipin’s roles during development include maintenance of cell stemness, and roles in cell fate and commitment (differentiation) and patterning and morphogenesis of tissues and organs. While many of these roles have not been demonstrated mechanistically, the importance of mitochondria in development via their involvement in bioenergetics, the generation and movement of reactive oxygen species, apoptosis, fission/fusion events, retrograde signaling, iron-sulfur clusters, and calcium signaling all strongly implicate direct mechanistic roles for cardiolipin. (Created with BioRender.com)