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.

June 2010

featured articles
- Importance of extension for integrin
  
  An extended conformation of α5ß1 integrin is important for cell spreading and adhesion complex formation.
- Peptidoglycan binding: Calcium-free killing
  
  NMR spectroscopy reveals the molecular basis for Ca²⁺-independent recognition by bactericidal Reg family lectins.
research highlights
- Structure: Talin catches the tail of integrin
  The unstable nature of the talin–integrin complex has made it difficult to study. Now, the crystal structure of a tight talin–ß-tail complex is available.
- Structure Watch
  The best recent structures chosen by Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology.
technical highlights
- Gene Composer
  Use this software suite to design protein constructs and codon engineered genes for structural proteomics.
- CASD-NMR: assessing automated structure determination by NMR
  Are we close to automated structures being as good as expert-deduced NMR structures?