The Mitochondrion Project Research in our laboratory focuses on the mitochondrion. This organelle is critical to homeostasis of the cell, by virtue of providing most of the energy for cellular processes, and by involvement in other metabolic pathways. Defects in enzymes of energy metabolism, particularly mutations in the components of oxidative phosphorylation, are involved in a number of diseases and in aging.
Mitochondrion also play a pivotal role in programmed cell death.
One of our ongoing research projects is to understand the workings of the ATP synthase, also called the F1F0-ATPase. It is now clear that this enzyme is a small molecular motor in which catalytic site events in the F1 part are coupled to proton translocation in the F0 part by rotation of the mobile domain or crankshaft within the protein complex. We are using protein structural and biophysical approaches to study the details of the mechanism of this interesting enzyme. Our second major project concerns the overall structure and dynamics of the mitochondrion. This organelle is not the cigar-shaped particle pictured in textbooks but a dynamic reticulum throughout the cell cytoplasm.