research advances

Synopses of important developments in the field of structural biology and structural genomics, including advances from the Protein Structure Initiative. The featured articles and technical highlights are specially written for the Structural Biology Knowledgebase, while the research highlights are taken from NPG publications.

March 2010

featured articles
- Formate transporter or channel?
  
  The mystery of how formate crosses the membrane is now solved.
- Safer Alzheimer's drugs?
  
  Inhibitors that only partially block phosphodiesterase activity look likely to reduce the nasty side effects of full inhibitors.
research highlights
- One-shot structure determination
  By sampling a two-dimensional diffraction pattern on a spherical detector, three-dimensional structure determination of single molecules should be possible from a single measurement.
- Translation: Channeling order
  A new method for isolating stalled ribosome–nascent chain (RNC) complexes from Escherichia coli and analyzing the folded states of these ribosome-bound proteins by multidimensional NMR spectroscopy.
technical highlights
- Spot protein-protein interactions… fast
  Nanowire transistors act as high-throughput biosensors for detecting protein interactions.
- NMR has its wiki way
  A wiki containing all the procedures and experimental set-ups used by the Northeast Structural Genomics Consortium is ideal for training new spectrometrists.