Andres Vacas

Comparative analysis of mitochondrial proteomes across the tree of life

Mitochondria arose from the endosymbiosis of a bacterium with an archaea-related host cell about 2 billion years ago. To understand their origins and evolution, we compared experimentally defined mitoproteomes from the MitoCarta Tree of Life project. Across eight organisms, we id...

Mitochondrial proteome of Acanthamoeba delineates aerobic and anaerobic pathways dynamically regulated by oxygen

Acanthamoeba castellanii causes infectious blindness and resides in a key evolutionary outgroup to humans and fungi. Its divergent mitochondria are of outstanding interest due to their predicted aerobic and anaerobic functions with potential for drug targeting. However, a detaile...

A high-confidence plant mitochondrial proteome via protein correlation profiling

Plant mitochondria share many features with animal mitochondria but also possess unique traits, including presence of both circular and linear mitochondrial DNA, RNA editing, a branched electron transport chain, and metabolic pathways supporting photosynthesis. An accurate mitoch...

Acanthamoeba ATP synthase structure reveals the TCA cycle is tethered to OXPHOS

Oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) is a key metabolic process that couples redox energy to ATP production. While some core OXPHOS complex subunits are found across all domains of life, many have diverged or expanded across evolution—as seen in the protozoan pathogen Acanthamoeba...

Conserved and divergent mitochondrial assemblies in kinetoplastid parasites

The mitochondrial proteomes of Leishmania tarentolae and Trypanosoma brucei contain ∼1,700 proteins, most of which lack homologs in higher eukaryotes. Here, we integrate complexome profiling and cryo-electron microscopy to define conserved and lineage-specific macromolecular asse...