Kai (Jack) Zhang

Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, USA

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 a physiological environment is challenging due to the loss of the native membranes during purification. Here, we directly image   porcine    mitochondria    by   developing    a    hybrid   in    situ cryo-electron microscopy technique, which enabled us to determine

the structures of various respiratory supercomplexes in the native membrane environment at near-atomic resolution. Our approach holds great potential for bridging in situ imaging with emerging  biomedical  methodologies, such as stem cell  models, to  investigate  mitochondrial organization and dysfunction under diverse physiological and pathological conditions.