Figure 2.

Mitochondrial profiling in benign and epithelial ovarian carcinoma (EOC) tissue. (A) Overview of the study design illustrating the multi-level approach ranging from biobehavioral factors to biochemical and molecular assessments of mitochondrial content and function. (B) Schematic of the internal components of the mitochondrial respiratory chain (complexes I-V), the tricarboxylic acid (TCA, also Krebs) cycle, and the mitochondrial genome (mtDNA). Enzymatic activities measured include citrate synthase (CS), succinate dehydrogenase (SDH, complex II), and cytochrome c oxidase (COX, complex IV). mtDNA copy number (mtDNAcn) was measured using qPCR. Using this data, the Mitochondrial Health Index (MHI) was calculated for each patient with mean-centered activities of respiratory chain complexes, divided by markers of mitochondrial content³. (C) Enzymatic activities for CS, SDH, and COX, (D) mtDNAcn, and (E) MHI. (F) Average COX/SDH ratio and (G) scatterplot illustrating the distinct mitochondrial phenotypes between benign vs EOC. Each data-point represents the average of two measures for a participant; graphed on Log10 scale. n = 51 benign, n = 128 high-grade EOCs, P values from one-way ANOVA performed on log-transformed data. *** p < 0.001. The non-transformed data is shown.