The changes in balance between the rates of mitochondrial fission and fusion directly affect the wide range of mitochondrial lengths that can be observed in different cell types. Rapid fission and fusion of the mitochondria in cultured fibroblasts has been shown to promote the redistribution of mitochondrial green fluorescent protein (GFP) from one mitochondrion to all of the other mitochondria. This process can occur in a cell within a time period as short as an hour.
