Single-molecule spectroscopy of protein conformational dynamics in live eukaryotic cells

Single-molecule spectroscopy of protein conformational dynamics in live eukaryotic cells. Iwo König, Arash Zarrine-Afsar, Mikayel Aznauryan, Andrea Soranno, Bengt Wunderlich, Fabian Dingfelder, Jakob C Stüber, Andreas Plückthun, Daniel Nettels & Benjamin Schuler; Nature Methods (2015)doi:10.1038/nmeth.3475 Published online 06 July 2015

Advances in methodology are making it gradually more feasible to investigate biomolecular processes in their native cellular environment. The ultimate goal is to reach quantitative molecular understanding with the same rigor as in test-tube experiments.The results on protein GB1 and frataxin indicated a remarkable robustness in the conformational stabilities and even folding kinetics of these proteins in cells compared to in simple buffered solutions. We therefore expect that single-molecule spectroscopy will play an important role in bridging the gap between our quantitative understanding of biomolecules in vitro and in vivo.


Source: Single-molecule spectroscopy of protein conformational dynamics in live eukaryotic cells