12:30-13:00

Speaker: Hauke Hillen, Department of Cellular Biochemistry, University Medical Center Göttingen and Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen

Chair: Inge Kühl, Institut de Biologie Intégrative de la Cellule, CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay

Organizers: AK Young Investigators

Abstract:
Mitochondria are subcellular organelles that provide the majority of ATP required by the eukaryotic cell. They maintain an organellar genome, which encodes for essential subunits of the respiratory chain. Mitochondrial gene expression is carried out by unique molecular machineries, but the underlying mechanisms and their regulation remain poorly understood. The mitochondrial genome is transcribed by a dedicated mitochondrial RNA polymerase, which acts in concert with specialized transcription factors to synthesize mitochondrial transcripts. In this talk, I will highlight how recent structural and functional studies of mitochondrial transcription have led to a molecular picture of the mitochondrial transcription cycle. Together with other recent advances, these studies now provide a starting point for further research aimed at deciphering mitochondrial gene expression and its regulation in response to varying cellular needs.