Fig. 5 |. Proposed mechanism of OPA1-mediated mitochondrial IM fusion.
Human L-OPA1 molecules embedded on the surface of the mitochondrial IM may nucleate helical polymerization of MIL-embedded S-OPA1 to drive IM tubulation. Subsequent conformational changes within the OPA1 lattice extract the PD, further constricting the IM and introducing lipid-packing defects to lower the energy barrier to fusion. The diagram was created using BioRender.