| Relatively simple and well understood. Better for studies of mechanism. No interference from cytosolic factors |
Lack cellular context |
Undisturbed cellular environment; greater physiological relevance. Interactions with the rest of the cell are preserved |
More complex, more scope for errors of interpretation. Lack organismal context |
| Easy to isolate from many adult tissues of wild-type or genetically modified animals |
Subject to damage and selection during isolation. Isolation from small or tough tissues can be problematic |
No artefacts due to mitochondrial isolation. Cell lines are amenable to genetic manipulation and plate-based assays |
Can be hard or impossible to isolate viable primary cells from adult tissues of transgenic animals |
| Reagents and substrates can be added directly; the experimenter has control over conditions |
The experimenter has to choose appropriate experimental conditions |
The cell sets the mitochondrial environment |
Many reagents and substrates are cell-impermeant, restricting experimental options. The experimenter chooses extracellular substrates, hormones and conditions |
| Methods are generally very well established |
Existing methods often need large amounts of sample; mitochondria from different cell types may be unavoidably aggregated |
Plate-based assays allow measurements on tiny amounts of the sample or single cells |
Many methods are not sufficiently specific or quantitative |
| Easy and usually meaningful to normalize to protein or cytochrome content |
Effects due to mitochondrial proliferation, localization etc. lost during isolation |
Effects due to mitochondrial proliferation and localization retained |
The meaning of results changes with normalization (cell number, cell mass, DNA, cytochrome a etc.) |
