UCSF

Mitochondria play a central role in lipid metabolism and can bind to lipid droplets. However, the role and functional specialization of the population of peridroplet mitochondria (PDMs) remain unclear, as methods to isolate functional PDMs were not developed until recently. Here, we describe an approach to isolate intact PDMs from murine brown adipose tissue based on their adherence to lipid droplets. PDMs isolated using our approach can be used to study their specialized function by respirometry. For complete information on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Benador et al. (2018).