Structural relationship between desmosomes and mitochondria in human livers exhibiting a wide range of diseases.

Liver biopsies from ten patients (five women and five men, aged 25-63) with a number of different diseases were studied with a transmission electron microscope. In addition to many different pathologic changes in the hepatocytes, all clinical diagnoses showed 5-70% of mitochondria with paracrystalline inclusions. A peculiar finding was that the desmosomes that join two cells had mitochondria associated with the intracytoplasmic component in both cells in 5-15% of desmosomes observed. In addition, the association involved only one side in one cell in 7-23% of desmosomes observed. Only speculation can be made regarding the function of these mitochondrial-desmosomal associations.