SLAC's X-ray laser enables direct images of ultrafast structural changes in myoglobin
Thursday, September 17, 2015 - 08:00
in Physics & Chemistry
Myoglobin, a protein in muscle tissue that stores oxygen, is what gives meat its red pigment. What is less well-known is that in 1957, it became the first protein molecule whose structure was fully mapped in 3-D. That breakthrough was made possible by a technique called crystallography, in which crystals of a substance are hit with X-rays to produce images that can be used to determine the position of individual atoms. But this early portrait, and the portraits of most all protein structures in the decades that followed, was just a stand-still view. To learn more about how proteins function in the body and how they interact with other molecules, scientists needed a way to watch them shift shape and move.