Mitochondria are central to the cellular architects of cellular energy conversion, and their function is linked to their intricate internal structure. The inner mitochondrial membrane is folded into cristae, dynamic subcompartments that organize the oxidative phosphorylation. Advances in cryo-EM have provided atomic views of isolated respiratory complexes, yet a fundamental question remains unresolved: how these machines are organized, regulated, and remodeled within native membranes. We lack a mechanistic understanding of how the nanoscale arrangement and conformational dynamics within cristae dictate organelle function and how their disruption contributes to cellular decline.

Amunts Lab aims to overcome this limitation by resolving mitochondrial energy-converting complexes in-situ and at higher resolution across defined functional states. Our central hypothesis is that the mitochondrial dysfunction in aging and disease is driven by the disassembly of supramolecular complexes and the loss of specific, functionally critical conformational states that are only observable in their native cellular context. We further hypothesize that cristae formation is orchestrated through ordered assembly of these complexes into defined oligomeric arrays.

The Amunts Lab integrates cryo-EM, cryo-ET, molecular dynamics, and biochemical validation to understand how proteins are synthesized, assembled, and organized into multi-component bioenergetic complexes in membranes. The lab has advanced structural and mechanistic studies of photosystem I supercomplexes, mitochondrial ribosomes and their biogenesis pathways, and respiratory supercomplex/megacomplex assemblies linked to cristae architecture. Ongoing work extends high-resolution in situ analysis to connect nanoscale organization and conformational dynamics with mitochondrial function across defined physiological states.

Humboldt Scholar, MPI Dortmund, Germany (2025)

Honorary Chair Professor, Huazhong Agricultural University (2025)

Humboldt Award, the Max Planck Institute (2024)

EMBO Young Investigator (2019)

Cancer Foundation Junior Investigator Award (2019)

Lennart Nilsson Award for Scientific Imaging (2016)

George Palade Award, Microscopy Society of America (2015)

1. Structural basis of mitochondrial membrane bending by the I-II-III-IV supercomplex. Nature 615 (7954), 934-938 (2023). Mühleip, A., Flygaard, R. K., Baradaran, R., Haapanen, O., Gruhl, T., Tobiasson, V., Maréchal, A., Sharma, V. & Amunts, A.

2. Mechanism of mitoribosomal small subunit biogenesis and preinitiation. Nature 606 (7914), 603-608 (2022). Itoh, Y., Khawaja, A., Laptev, I., Cipullo, M., Atanassov, I., Sergiev, P., Rorbach, J. & Amunts, A.

3. Mechanism of membrane-tethered mitochondrial protein synthesis. Science 371 (6536), 846-849 (2021). Itoh, Y., Andrell, J., Choi, A., Richter, U., Maiti, P., Best, R., Barrientos, A., Battersby, B. & Amunts, A.

4. The structure of the human mitochondrial ribosome. Science 348 (6230), 95-98 (2015). Amunts, A., Brown, A., Toots, J., Scheres, S. H. W. & Ramakrishnan, V.

5. Structure of the yeast mitochondrial large ribosomal subunit. Science 343 (6178), 1485-1489 (2014). Amunts, A., Brown, A., Bai, X., Llácer, J. L., Hussain, T., Emsley, P., Long, F., Murshudov, G., Scheres, S. H. W. & Ramakrishnan, V.

6. The structure of a plant photosystem I supercomplex at 3.4 Å resolution. Nature 447 (7140), 58-63 (2007). Amunts, A., Drory, O. & Nelson, N.

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