Toomas Tiivel ; [supervisor: Valdur Saks ; co-suppervisors: Andre Rossi and Enn Seppet ; Faculty of Chemistry, Department of Basic and Applied Chemistry, Chair of Biochemistry, Tallinn Technical University, Tallinn, Estonia, and Laboratory of Fundamental and Applied Bioenergetics, Joseph Fourier University, Grenoble, France, and Laboratory of Bioenergetics, National Institute of Chemical Physics and Biophysics, Tallinn, Estonia]