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.

November 2010

featured articles
- COX inhibition: Naproxen by proxy
  
  Structural basis of COX inhibition suggests that adverse effects of NSAIDs will not be easily avoided.
- ABA receptor diversity
  
  There are 14 members in the ABA receptor family in Arabidopsis thaliana. How these receptors differ in their response to a synthetic, seed-specific ABA agonist is now explored in two independent papers, using a combination of crystallography, NMR and biochemical approaches.
research highlights
- Single molecules meet systems biology
  Application of single-molecule methods to assay genome-wide mRNA and protein levels in single bacteria provides a systems-level view of their relationship.
- CRISPR cleavage
  The Csy4-CRISPR RNA cocrystal suggests how Csy4 might discriminate CRISPR RNAs from other cellular RNAs.
- Seeing the invisible
  The structural characterization of protein folding intermediates is inherently challenging due to their transient and dynamic nature. Now state-of-the-art NMR and computational methods lead to the structural model of a folding intermediate of the FF domain.
technical highlights
- Solving homodimeric structures with NMR
  Complexes are very difficult to solve in solution but are important biologically. Combining multiple approaches is the way forward.
- Scaling up mutational scanning
  Mutating a protein's sequence is a useful way of uncovering functionally important residues. A large-scale method tracking up to 600,000 variants at once will speed up this analysis.