Cryo-electron microscopy as a discovery tool in sperm biology
June 16, 2026 @ 11:00 – 12:00 CEST
Speaker: Tzviya Zeev-Ben-Mordehai, Utrecht University
Abstract
Cryo-EM single-particle analysis (SPA) approaches typically entail overexpression and purification of the target complex. For that, prior knowledge of the composition of the complex of interest is required. In the highly specialised sperm cell, the molecular composition is often not known. During my talk, I will show how we expand the range of samples attainable for SPA towards more native samples, specifically towards complex macromolecular assemblies that cannot be reconstituted, and show how SPA is used as a discovery tool in sperm biology.
Biography
An expert in reproductive structural biology. Zeev-Ben-Mordehai received her PhD from the Weizmann Institute of Science in 2008. In 2015 she established her group in the Division of Structural Biology of Oxford University. Since 2017 her group is part of Bijvoet Centre for Biomolecular Research of Utrecht University. Her group developed the first cryo-ET workflow for mammalian sperm, enabling molecularresolution imaging of flagellar ultrastructure across species. Her landmark studies have revealed the multi-scale architecture of mammalian sperm flagella (EMBO J 2021), structural specialisations of the sperm tail (Cell 2023), structural diversity of axonemes across mammalian motile cilia (Nature 2025), and in-cell structures at the mitochondria– cytoskeleton interface in sperm (PNAS 2021). Zeev-Ben-Mordehai is a recipient of a Wellcome Trust and The Royal Society Sir Henry Dale Fellowship (2015), NWO START-UP (2018), ERC-consolidator grant (2023) and an NWO-Vici grant (2025).
Host; Luca Jovine luca.jovine@ki.se
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