Topic: High-resolution in situ structures of mammalian respiratory supercomplexes
Speaker: Assistant Professor Zhang Kai, Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University (Yale)
Date and time: August 26, 14:00
Venue: Auditorium, Y Building
Host: Yang Haitao, Gao Yan
Abstract:
Mitochondria are essential for ATP production via oxidative phosphorylation, involving respiratory complexes within the inner membrane. Despite extensive in vitro studies, understanding their mechanisms in physiological environment is challenging due to loss of the native environment during purification. Here, we directly image porcine mitochondria by developing a high-resolution in situ cryo-electron microscopy technique, which enabled us to determine near-atomic structures of various respiratory supercomplexes in the native membrane.
Biography:
Prof. Zhang Kai obtained his Ph.D. from the Institute of Biophysics (Sun Fei’s lab), CAS in 2013. From 2014 to 2018, he conducted postdoctoral research at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge, UK. He joined Yale University in 2019. The long-term goal of his research is to advance high-resolution imaging technology and analytical methods, aiming to integrate structural biology, traditionally limited to the molecular level, into the fields of cell biology and biomedical research, thus improving our understanding of various fundamental cellular activities and human diseases at the atomic level.