What is this collection about?
Mitochondria rely on a range of quality control mechanisms to preserve their structure and function. This rapidly evolving field includes research on mitochondrial membrane composition, cristae architecture, organelle dynamics, lipid-driven membrane remodelling and protein-lipid interactions that shape mitochondrial organization. Understanding how mitochondria sense and respond to stress through processes such as mitophagy, proteostasis, membrane remodelling and fission-fusion dynamics is critical for revealing how quality control defects contribute to metabolic, neurodegenerative and age-associated diseases. This Collection aims to bring together research spanning mitochondrial dynamics, cristae morphology, membrane regulation, lipid and protein-lipid composition, surveillance pathways and cellular responses that repair or eliminate damaged mitochondria. Communications Biology and Nature Communications will consider original Articles, Reviews and Perspectives, while Scientific Reports will consider original Articles.
Why is this collection important?
Mitochondria play central roles in cellular metabolism, signalling and homeostasis, making their quality control essential for healthy cell function. Advances in imaging, biochemistry and cell biology are providing unprecedented insight into mitochondrial ultrastructure, membrane organization and stress adaptation. By bringing together diverse perspectives across mitochondrial biology, this Collection will highlight emerging discoveries that deepen our understanding of mitochondrial function and disease. The studies featured may also help uncover new therapeutic opportunities for conditions linked to mitochondrial dysfunction, including metabolic, neurodegenerative and age-associated disorders.
Why submit to a collection?
Collections like this one help attract and promote high-quality science. They are led by internal In-House Editors and external Guest Editors and supported by a dedicated team of Commissioning Editors and Managing Editors at Springer Nature. Collection manuscripts typically see higher citations, downloads, and Altmetric scores, and provide a one-stop-shop on a cutting-edge topic of interest.
Who is involved?
Communications Biology is edited by both in-house professional editors and Editorial Board Members.
Guest Editors for Communications Biology
Arianne Theiss, PhD, University of Colorado Anschutz School of Medicine, USA
Arianne Theiss is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Colorado in the Division of Gastroenterology. She obtained her PhD in Cell and Molecular Physiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill followed by postdoctoral training in Digestive Diseases at Emory University in Atlanta. Her research program has focused on elucidating the role and mechanism whereby mitochondrial signaling pathways in intestinal epithelial cells contribute to inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), colitis-associated cancer, and colorectal tumorigenesis. This includes mitochondrial influence on intestinal epithelial cell innate immune responses during homeostasis or under stress such as during inflammation or obesity and how this shapes gut microbiota composition and susceptibility to pathogenic infection.
Giulia Bertolin, PhD, Institute of Genetics and Development of Rennes, France
Dr. Giulia Bertolin is an independent researcher at the Institute of Genetics and Development of Rennes (IGDR), France. She is deeply fascinated by the way mitochondrial functions are shaped over time and space. Dr. Bertolin obtained her PhD at Paris 5 University/Paris Brain Institute in 2013, where she studied the role of Parkinson’s disease-related proteins in maintaining mitochondrial quality control by mitophagy and organelle protein import. For her postdoc, she moved to the IGDR in Rennes, where she developed innovative genetically-encoded biosensors and quantitative fluorescence microscopy approaches to follow mitochondrial functions in cancer cells and in Drosophila. In 2017 she was awarded a CNRS tenured researcher position at the IGDR. Her current research is interdisciplinary and aims at gaining a superior spatiotemporal resolution of mitochondrial functions by developing novel fluorescent biosensors and super-resolution microscopy pipelines for mitochondrial biology.
Nature Communications is edited by in-house professional editors.
Scientific Reports is managed by in-house professional editors and edited by Editorial Board Members.
Our editors work closely together to ensure the quality of our published papers and consistency in author experience.
How can I submit my paper?
Visit the Collection page to find out more about this collection and submit your article.