Antoni Barrientos

Associate Professor of Neurology and
Biochemistry

Ph.D. (1996) University of Barcelona, Spain

Biogenesis of the mitochondrial respiratory chain (MRC)

 Research Interest:

Processes underlying the biogenesis of the mitochondrial respiratory chain (MRC) and how they bear on human neuromuscular and neurodegenerative disorders, interested in the creation of yeast models of human neurodegenerative disorders (including Huntington's disease and ALS); this will help us study the alterations in mitochondrial physiology that could be essential for the pathogenic mechanism of such disorders

Representative Publications:

1-     Zambrano A, Fontanesi F, Solans A, de Oliveira RL, Fox TD, Tzagoloff A, Barrientos A. Aberrant translation of cytochrome c oxidase subunit 1 mRNA species in the absence of Mss51p in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Mol Biol Cell. 18:523-35. (2007)

2- Vempati UD, Diaz F, Barrientos A, Narisawa S, Mian AM, Millan JL, Boise LH, Moraes CT (2007) Role of cytochrome c in apoptosis: increased sensitivity to tumor necrosis factor alpha is associated with respiratory defects but not with lack of cytochrome C release. Mol Cell Biol. 27(5):1771-83. (2007)

3-      Solans A., Zambrano A., Rodriguez M., and Barrientos A. Cytotoxicity of a mutant huntingtin fragment in yeast involves early alterations in mitochondrial OXPHOS complex II and III. Hum.  Mol. Genet., 15(20):3063-81. (2006)

4-     Fontanesi F., Soto I.C., Horn D., and Barrientos A. (2006) Assembly of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase, a complicated and highly regulated cellular process. Am. J. Physiol. – Cell Physiol, 291(6):C1129-47. (2006)

5-     Moraes C.T., Diaz F., and Barrientos A. Defects in the biosynthesis of mitochondrial heme c and heme a in yeast and mammals Biochim. Biophys. Acta - Bioenergetics, 1659: 153-159. (2005)