Inhibition of protein import into mitochondria by amphiphilic cations: potential targets and mechanism of action.

In this paper we describe for the first time the inhibitory effect of three amphiphilic cations, trifluoperazine, propranolol and dibucaine on mitochondrial protein import. The amphiphilic cations did not affect binding of mitochondrial precursor proteins to mitochondria. Import into mitoplasts was affected in a similar manner to intact mitochondria, indicating that the protein import machinery of the inner membrane of mitochondria was responsible for the observed effect. At concentrations which completely inhibited protein import, the amphiphilic cations did not affect the membrane potential (DeltaPsi) across the inner membrane. The inhibitory potency of amphiphilic cations reflects their lipid/water partition coefficient and relatively high concentrations of the drugs were required for complete inhibition, hence we propose that the mechanism of protein import inhibition by amphiphilic cations is due to membrane perturbing effects. We discuss the implications of our findings in view of the possible connection between various inner mitochondrial membrane channels and the protein import pore.