Researchers watch tiny living machines self-assemble Jun 11, 2012 Insight may help the development of methods to treat diseases
at the nanoscale. Enabling bioengineers to design new molecular machines for
nanotechnology applications is one of the possible outcomes of a study by
University of Montreal researchers that was published in Nature Structural and
Molecular Biology today. The scientists have developed a new approach to
visualize how proteins assemble, which may also significantly aid our
understanding of diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, which are caused
by errors in assembly."In order to survive, all creatures, from bacteria
to humans, monitor and transform their environments using small protein
nanomachines made of thousands of atoms," explained the senior author of
the study, Prof. Stephen Michnick of the university's department of biochemistry.
"For example, in our sinuses, there are complex receptor proteins that are
activated in the presence of different odor molecules. Some of those scents
warn us of danger; others tell us that food is nearby." Proteins are made
of long linear chains of amino acids, which have evolved over millions of years
to self-assemble extremely rapidly – often within thousandths of a split second
- into a working nanomachine. "One of the main challenges for biochemists
is to understand how these linear chains assemble into their correct structure
given an astronomically large number of other possible forms," Michnick
said."To understand how a protein goes from a linear chain to a unique
assembled structure, we need to capture snapshots of its shape at each stage of
assembly said Dr. Alexis Vallée-Bélisle, first author of the study. "The
problem is that each step exists for a fleetingly short time and no available
technique enables us to obtain precise structural information on these states
within such a small time frame. We developed a strategy to monitor protein
assembly by integrating fluorescent probes throughout the linear protein chain
so that we could detect the structure of each stage of protein assembly, step
by step to its final structure." The protein assembly process is not the
end of its journey, as a protein can change, through chemical modifications or
with age, to take on different forms and functions. "Understanding how a
protein goes from being one thing to becoming another is the first step towards
understanding and designing protein nanomachines for biotechnologies such as
medical and environmental diagnostic sensors, drug synthesis of delivery,"
Vallée-Bélisle said.
No comments:
Post a Comment