Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine's Breakthrough in Mitochondrial Protein Research

TapTechNews on May 31th, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine released a press release on May 29th, stating that its medical school Professor Zhu Jiapeng and Professor Zhang Kai from Yale University have formed a research team and announced the clearest mitochondrial protein analysis image so far.

The relevant achievements were published in Nature, and this is also the first time that Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine has published a research paper as the first unit in Nature.

This research breaks through the traditional concept of protein purification, and directly images mitochondria, achieving for the first time high-resolution structural analysis of mitochondrial in situ membrane proteins, obtaining the most real and clear three-dimensional structure of the respiratory chain supercomplex, providing a solid theoretical foundation for the study of the most basic life process of oxidative phosphorylation.

Professor Zhu Jiapeng's research team broke through the limitations of the traditional concept of protein purification and cryo-electron microscopy technology, and achieved for the first time ultra-high resolution imaging of mitochondria derived from the heart at the complete organelle level. It can directly capture a glimpse of the life process from mitochondria, with details accurate to almost atomic level.

The research shows the arrangement of the respiratory chain on mitochondria, observes the microscopic process of the natural substrate operation in the physiological state, accurately locates the side chain structure of the respiratory chain protein, and reaches an unprecedented resolution of 1.8 angstroms (a measure of atomic scale), which means that the position of almost every atom in the protein can be observed.

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