structural biology update September 2010

Each month we offer a fresh collection of research, news and events in structural biology and structural genomics, produced by Nature Publishing Group in collaboration with the Protein Structure Initiative.

research advances

- Introduction
  
  PSI JCSG center director Ian Wilson introduces the third in a series of articles highlighting the achievements of the PSI in 2005–2010.
- Achievements and milestones
  
  Achievements in protein structure determination in the past five years have provided clues to the evolutionary, structural and functional relationships among proteins that are not evident from sequence data alone.
- Membrane protein structures enter an exponential growth phase
  
  Adrenergic receptors, ion channels and membrane transport proteins are among the membrane proteins whose structures have recently been determined.
- Scaling up: single organisms and metagenomics
  
  Structural genomics and systems biology combine forces to uncover the central metabolic network of Thermotoga maritima.
- Protein pathways
  
  Structural characterization can reveal interaction interfaces between the proteins in a pathway and give insight into potential therapeutics.
- A journey into the expanding protein universe
  
  By providing new structural knowledge, PSI-2 has covered considerable ground in characterizing protein space.
- more this month