Mitochondrial membrane potential and nucleosidic inhibitors of HIV reverse transcriptase: a cytometric approach.

Mitochondrial toxicity is a relevant side effect of anti-HIV antiretroviral therapy. Adequate experimental models and advanced technologies are crucial to investigate properly mitochondrial toxicity. Functional flow cytometry allows a rapid and sensitive evaluation of several parameters on single cells, and is an excellent tool to investigate the impact of antiviral drug on mitochondrial activity. We used such approach to analyze in vitro mitochondrial toxicity induced by stavudine and zidovudine on cell lines of different origin (hemopoietic: A301, U937, CEM, K562; hepatic: HepG2), and found that the cell lines had a different sensitivity to the action of the drugs.