Biosciences Research Seminar - From the egg to the kidney... and back

The union between gametes at fertilization is essential for the transmission of genetic material through the generations, and the defense of our body against bacteria that try to colonize the urinary tract plays a key role in preventing urinary tract infections - the most common type of non-epidemic bacterial infection in humans. What connects these seemingly completely different, but both fundamental, biological processes? In my talk, I will describe how our crystallographic studies of reproductive proteins led us to visualize the most abundant protein in human urine by cryo-EM, and what the latter revealed about the molecular basis of UTI prevention as well as egg-sperm recognition.