Figure 6.

Asbestos causes AEC mitochondrial dysfunction without altering colocalization of the mitochondria and the ER. A549 cells were exposed to control media (A and B) or 25 μg/cm² amosite asbestos (C and D) for 4 hours, and then immunofluorescence with semiquantitative analysis of the mitochondria (COXIV; punctate red), the ER (calnexin; punctate green), colocalization (punctate yellow–orange; arrows), and mitochondrial dysfunction (loss of mitochondrial red staining) (D) was performed as described in the Materials and Methods. The graph depicts the semiquantitative analysis for control and asbestos (Asb-5, 5 μg/cm²; Asb-25, 25 μg/cm²)-exposed cells; x-axis (percentage of 200 cells analyzed for each condition). A representative cell with low mitochondria–ER colocalization (A), high mitochondria–ER colocalization (B and C), and mitochondrial dysfunction (D) are shown. Data are from one of two separate experiments with similar results.