Trapped in a ring: Ring-like protein complex helps ensure accurate protein production
Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - 10:30
in Biology & Nature
In fairy tales, magic rings endow their owners with special abilities: the ring makes the wearer invisible, fulfils his wishes, or otherwise helps the hero on the path to his destiny. Similarly, a ring-like structure found in a protein complex called 'Elongator' has led researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Institut de Génétique et Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (IGBMC) in Strasbourg, France, in exciting new directions. Published today in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology, the first three-dimensional structure of part of this complex provides new clues to its tasks inside the cell and to its role in neurodegenerative diseases.