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.

January 2011

featured articles
- Subtle shifts
  The crystal structure of EF-Tu bound to the 70S ribosome solves a 40-year-old puzzle.
- Regulating nitrogen assimilation
  By combining their efforts, researchers at two PSI centers provide new insights into a switch that controls nitrogen metabolism in microorganisms.
research highlights
- Monitoring MAPs
  The structure of doublecortin bound to 13-protofilament microtubules helps build a model for understanding microtubule stabilization.
- Fit for Export
  How nuclear export signals (NESs) are recognized by their receptor CRM1 is now examined by a variety of approaches and shows that different NES peptides adopt different conformations to fit into five rigid hydrophobic binding pockets on CRM1, and redefines an NES consensus.
technical highlights
- A new amphiphile for crystallizing membrane proteins
  
  An easy-to-use chemical approach for stabilizing, extracting and crystallizing integral membrane proteins.
- Predicting functions within a superfamily
  
  A detailed analysis of the HUP superfamily provides the groundwork for automated function prediction.