Kryo-Elektronenmikroskopie von membrangebundenen Proteinnanomaschinen (Cryo-Electron microscopy of membrane-bound protein nanomachines)

Proteins are in most cases organized into higher-order assemblies in the cell in order to transmit signals or process compounds in metabolism. Those higher-order structures (dubbed metabolons), are usually organized on membrane and have not been tackled with conventional structural methods because they are highly intricate and transient. Cryo-electron microscopy, combined with computational structural biology holds great potential to structurally elucidate metabolons, because heterogeneous samples may be imaged at the electron microscopes. The research project "Cryo-Electron Microscopy of membrane-bound protein nanomachines” comprises the structural characterization of metabolons involved in the core metabolic pathway of the cell, pyruvate oxidation, which is essential for living cells and is localized in the mitochondrial membranes.