Nanoparticles aid the microscopic detection of a protein relevant for cancer
Monday, June 16, 2014 - 10:31
in Biology & Nature
Assemblies of proteins, known as protein complexes, have important functions in cells; protein complexes embedded in the cell membrane, for example, are responsible for the exchange with the extracellular environment. But because they are very small, their composition from subunits can only be determined indirectly or with extreme time-effort. Scientists at the INM – Leibniz Institute for New Materials are currently developing a novel microscopy technology for the direct detection of such individual subunits of protein complexes in the cell membrane of intact cells. The methodology is applied to investigate a protein complex acting as a calcium channel in the cell membrane. The channel plays an important role in prostate cancer.