发信人: doggiebear (doggiebear), 信区: Biology
标 题: SBIG: Channels
发信站: Unknown Space - 未名空间 (Thu Oct 16 22:26:05 2003) WWW-POST

First I would start by posting a figure on this board.

ficult to crystallize. Therefore, Mackinnon spent
lots of time to get monoclonical antibody against KcsA potassium channel. The
blue molecule is the the Fab fragment and the yellow molecule is the channel.
The amazing thing is only the fab fragment interact each other and mediate the
crystallization. Therefore, the hydrophobic residues on the channel do not
interact each other directly, which prevent the aggregation of the protein.

Another magic thing Mackinon did is to select and only use the antibody
against the tetramer of the potassium channel. Why? Because in native
environment, the channel is formed by a tetramer. By using this antibody, he
is able to produce a crystal revealing biological information.

Lesson to learn:

Growing crystal is always regarded as an art rather than science. But there
are science behind it. The more you know the protein you try to crystallize,
the better the chance you will get a crystal and the more likelihood you will
get biological information from that crystal.




Reference:

Nature vol 414 page 43

Nature vol 414 page 872

Nature vol 415 page 287

Science vol 285 page 100

--
I will vote a democrat even he is a dog.
Liberalism is something to be proud of!
※ 修改:·doggiebear 於 Oct 16 22:26:05 修改本文·[FROM: 208.180.]
※ 来源:．Unknown Space - 未名空间 mitbbs.com．[FROM: 208.180.]