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Huntington’s disease (HD) is a dominantly-inherited neuropsychiatric disorder. Typically the symptoms begin in adulthood, slowly progressing from movement disorder to behavioural and cognitive disturbances, often manifested in depression and dementia. It has been known since 1993 that the disease is due to mutation of a single gene coding for huntingtin (HTT) that extends the poly-glutamine (poly-Q) repeats in the protein. Aggregation of poly-Q repeat fragments is considered to be the ...
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A breakthrough in the fight against drug-resistant infections is one step closer following the discovery of the structure of NDM-1: a vicious form of bacteria that is currently resistant to the most powerful antibiotics available. The structure was determined by crystallography carried out at Diamond Light Source.
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Fungus-like eukaryotic plant pathogens of the genus Phytophthora are devastating to root crops and vegetables because the effector proteins they produce can evolve rapidly to evade recognition by the host’s immune system.
Until now the molecular mechanisms underlying this evolutionary arms race have been poorly understood. New research by a team from the BBSRC’s John Innes Centre, Sainsbury Laboratory and the University of East Anglia, have used Diamond’s MX beamlines to shed light on the ...
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G protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) are a large family of proteins that span the cell membrane of eukaryotes and consist of seven transmembrane helices. GPCRs respond to molecules outside the cell and activate signal transduction pathways inside the cell. The adenosine receptor and β-adrenoceptors (βARs) are GPCRs that activate intracellular G proteins in response to the binding of agonists like adenosine or noradrenaline, respectively. The importance of agonist-induced activation of ...
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All living cells require energy, usually provided in the form of ATP, to carry out fundamental processes like movement and growth. Therefore, cells have to balance energy supply with the demand. AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) has emerged as a central component of a signalling pathway involved in regulating intracellular energy homeostasis. When ADP and AMP levels increase, concomitant with a fall in ATP levels, AMPK is activated by phosphorylation on threonine-172 within the catalytic a ...
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To establish successful infection, a retrovirus must insert a DNA replica of its genome into host cell chromosomal DNA. This process is orchestrated by integrase, a viral enzyme that belongs to the DDE(D) nucleotidyltransferase/transposase superfamily. A tetramer of integrase assembles on viral DNA ends forming a highly stable nucleoprotein complex termed intasome 1,2. The intasome engages chromosomal DNA within a target capture complex to carry out strand transfer, irreversibly joining the ...
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Lassa fever virus kills more than five thousand people in West Africa every year, with many survivors having hearing and neurological problems.1 As no vaccine or effective drugs are available, and the infection can transmit from person to person, the Lassa fever virus is classed as a hazard group four virus and is regarded as a potential biological weapon. The nucleoprotein of Lassa fever is the most abundant protein in the virus and plays essential roles in virus translation, transcription, ...
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The serpins are a family of proteins of special interest to structural biologists because of their ability to spontaneously undergo a profound change in conformation.1 This conformational transition reflects the prime role of the serpins as protease inhibitors but it has also been adapted in individual serpins to allow the modulation of their function.2 A series of structures over the last 20 years has shown how this flexibility enables the serpins to act as controlling factors in key ...
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In general, the antibiotics that are prescribed by your GP work. Complete the prescribed course and your symptoms have gone. But in some cases, the bacteria causing the illness have developed a resistance to the drugs. We need to find a way to improve these drugs so that they can overcome this resistance. But we need to know how our drugs work before we can improve them, and one way to do this is by producing a 3D molecular image of the drug/inhibitor in action. Knowing the 3D structure of ...
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Virus infections in a number of insect families generally culminate in the occlusion of between one and several thousand virus particles within large proteinaceous crystalline occlusion bodies or polyhedra. Polyhedra are generally less than 7 μm in size, serve to protect the viruses from harsh environmental conditions and are made from a protein, polyhedrin, encoded by the viruses. Despite their small size, we solved the structure of polyhedra produced by the dsDNA baculovirus, Autographa ...
Macromolecular
Soft Condensed 
Imaging and
Biological
Magnetic
Structures and
Crystallography 
Spectroscopy 