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.
December 2011
featured articles
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Terminal activation
The recent crystal structure of the human BIG2 Sec7 domain reveals a novel ARF-interacting motif that regulates ARF activation.
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Reading out regioselectivity
The structures of four glycosyltransferases operating within a single biosynthetic pathway point to conserved and divergent mechanisms for controlling the regioselective addition of sugar donors, with implications for glycosyltransferase engineering.
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research highlights
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Structure watch Three new studies provide insights into dynamin assembly and how CaMKII conformations affect response to Ca2+.
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Acetylating for avidityN-terminal acetylation of the E2 enzyme Ubc12 improves its interaction with the E3 Dcn1.
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technical highlights
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Follow the RNA leader
An NMR method characterizes an RNA structural switch that regulates HIV-1 genome packaging.
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Not so cool
A comparison of X-ray diffraction datasets obtained at ambient and cryogenic temperatures reveals temperature-dependent effects on structural models.
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