The alternative enzymes-bearing tunicates lack multiple widely distributed genes coding for peripheral OXPHOS subunits.

The respiratory chain alternative enzymes (AEs) NDX and AOX from the tunicate Ciona intestinalis (Ascidiacea) have been xenotopically expressed and characterized in human cells in culture and in the model organisms Drosophila melanogaster and mouse, with the purpose of developing bypass therapies to combat mitochondrial diseases in human patients with defective complexes I and III/IV, respectively. The fact that the genes coding for NDX and AOX have been lost from genomes of evolutionarily successful animal groups, such as vertebrates and insects, led us to investigate if the composition of the respiratory chain of Ciona and other tunicates differs significantly from that of humans and Drosophila, to accommodate the natural presence of AEs. We have failed to identify in tunicate genomes fifteen orthologous genes that code for subunits of the respiratory chain complexes; all of these putatively missing subunits are peripheral to complexes I, III and IV in mammals, and many are important for complex-complex interaction in supercomplexes (SCs), such as NDUFA11, UQCR11 and COX7A.

An Affordable and Efficient "Homemade" Platform for Drosophila Behavioral Studies, and an Accompanying Protocol for Larval Mitochondrial Respirometry.

The usefulness of Drosophila as a model organism for the study of human diseases, behaviors and basic biology is unquestionable. Although practical, Drosophila research lacks popularity in developing countries, possibly due to the misinformed idea that establishing a lab and performing relevant experiments with such tiny insects is difficult and requires expensive, specialized apparatuses. Here, we describe how to build an affordable flylab to quantitatively analyze a myriad of behavioral parameters in D.