Mitochondrial transport in neurons is essential for forming and maintaining axonal projections. While much is known about anterograde mitochondrial movement, the function of retrograde mitochondrial motility in neurons was unknown. We investigated the dynamics and utility of retrograde mitochondrial transport. Using long-term tracking of mitochondria in vivo, we found mitochondria in axon terminals turnover within hours via retrograde transport. Mitochondria do not return to the cell body solely for degradation; rather, mitochondria use bidirectional transport to redistribute themselves throughout the neuron. Disruption of retrograde mitochondrial transport severely depletes the cell body of mitochondria and impacts mitochondrial health throughout the cell.Altered mitochondrial health correlates with decreased synaptic activity. Using proteomics, we provide evidence that retrograde mitochondrial movement functions to maintain the organelle's proteome. Together, our work demonstrates that mitochondrial retrograde transport is essential for the maintenance of a homeostatic population of mitochondria in neurons and consequently effective synaptic activity through promoting mitochondrial protein turnover.
KeywordsMitochondria, Axonal Transport, Cytoplasmic dynein, Mitochondrial protein import, Retrograde transport, Dynactin, Actr10, p150 glued regulation of local translation 13,14 . Therefore, maintaining a healthy pool of mitochondria, particularly in distal compartments of the neuron, is critical for the health and maintenance of functional neural circuits. While much is known about how damaged mitochondria are cleared from this region [15][16][17] , less is known about how populations of healthy mitochondria are maintained in neurons over their lifetime.Mitochondrial maintenance is complicated by the fact that this organelle requires more than a thousand proteins for optimal health and function. While mitochondria maintain their own genome 18-20 , which includes genes encoding 13 proteins in humans, the bulk of the proteins important for the function and maintenance of this organelle are synthesized from genes encoded in the nucleus 21,22 . These proteins have diverse half-lives, ranging from hours to weeks 23,24 . Once generated, mitochondrial proteins translocate to the correct compartment within the organelle through well-described mitochondrial protein import pathways 25 . However, while we know how proteins are incorporated into the organelle, how they are brought to the organelle prior to import, particularly in distal compartments, is largely unknown. While transport of proteins and/or mRNAs could be sufficient to replenish a number of mitochondrial proteins, it would require active transport of individual components to organelles which can be a meter from the cell body in humans. Given the number of mitochondrial proteins, the rapid turnover rates of a subset of them, and the distance from the cell body to distal neuronal compartments, active transport of each individual protein would be energy intensive ...