Rhodamine 123 uptake and mitochondrial DNA content in rabbit articular chondrocytes evolve differently upon transfer from cartilage to culture conditions.

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) represents 0.15% of the total cell DNA (at least an order of magnitude less than in liver or heart) of rabbit articular chondrocytes. Besides the already well-documented low respiratory activity, chondrocyte differentiation thus involves a specific control of mitochondrial biogenesis. When transferred to in vitro conditions, chondrocytes increase their stock of mtDNA at the same time they resume growth, even more efficiently (8 times) than they do for cell volume (4.4 times). On the contrary, overall mitochondrial activity, estimated as the uptake of rhodamine 123, does not follow the same trend (2.5 times increase). Chondrocytes apparently keep these functional characteristics for some generations in culture.