Sandbox Reserved 1626: Difference between revisions

The most well-known and commonly used inhibitor of calcium uptake into the mitochondria is ruthenium red ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruthenium_red RuRed]).  RuRed effectively inhibits calcium uptake without affecting mitochondrial respiration or calcium efflux.  Additionally, it has been shown to mitigate tissue damage due to IRI and slow cancer cell migration. The issue with RuRed is that its purification has always been a challenging matter.<ref name="Woods" />  Interestingly enough, this led to even more developments in the search for an inhibitor.  Many scientists had observed that impure RuRed actually had greater inhibition than pure RuRed.  One of the common minor impurities of RuRed, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ru360 Ru360], was found to be the active component of the RuRed mixtures, meaning it responsible for calcium inhibition. Ru360 is now commercially available and has been widely used for the study of calcium-dependent cellular processes and as a therapeutic agent.  Very little is known about its mechanism of inhibtion, but studies show that it interacts with the DXXE motif of the loop connecting the TM1 and TM2 helices.<ref name="Woods" />