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.

October 2009

featured articles
- Unusual cell division
  Streptomyces' unique mechanism for cell division comes under the spotlight and reveals the importance of the protein SsgB.
- Get3 into the groove
  Unlike most membrane proteins, SNAREs enter the endoplasmic reticulum after translation. The structure of the ATPase needed for entry reveals the likely mechanism.
research highlights
- Proteomics: Getting the numbers right
  One of the main challenges in mass spectrometry (MS)-based methods is to achieve fast and precise quantitative analysis of any protein (or set of proteins) of interest in a proteome. New studies show this is now possible.
- Core considerations
  The crystal structures of six bacteriorhodopsin mutants provide insights into membrane protein stability.
technical highlights
- The power of SAXS
  Can small angle X-ray scattering bridge the growing gap between structural information and genomic and proteomic advances?
- Face off
  Many annotations of the cytosolic sulfotransferase in publicly available databases are found to be wrong.