Table 3. Working concentration for various mitochondrial fluorescent dyes.

Fluorescent dye	Working Concentrations
TMRE	25-50nM
Mitotrcaker Green	50-100nM
#$Mitotracker red 633	250nM
*JC-1	5nM
**PicoGreen	1:500 dilution

^*Although the dye JC-1 can be used for qualitative purposes to assess heterogeneity in mitochondrial potential it does not yield quantitative results and also often causes distortion in mitochondrial morphology. The dye forms particulate structures in solution therefore it is recommended to do a serial dilution after spinning down the solution each time. Otherwise the particulate structure will deposit down on the bottom of the chamber during staining and the cells close to the particulate matter will incorporate more of the dye yielding very erroneous results.

^#Overstaining results in the incorporation even in the endoplasmic reticulum.

^$This dye including, some others not mentioned here, are dependent on the mitochondrial potential to variable extents.

^**Dilution is from a stock bought from Molecuar probes (P7581). Mitochondrial DNA would appear as cytoplasmic dots if optimally stained with this stain as seen in Figure 5. It is always recommended to perform dual staining with another mitochondrial marker or dye as cytoplasmic dots could also be due to mycoplasma infections.