Insights into plant respiration using cryo-EM

Respiration is a key metabolic process driving most life of Earth, yet the biochemical and structural details of respiratory complexes have remained unknown outside of a handful of mammals, yeast and bacteria. Drs. Letts and Maldonado will discuss how they obtained high-resolution cryo-EM structures of these complexes from plants using partial biochemical purifications from natural sources followed by in-silico purification. The structures and biochemical characterization of respiratory complexes from plants and other under-studied organisms expand the understanding of respiration across the tree of life, reveal unexpected diversity and generate new mechanistic hypotheses for this core metabolic process.