Big Data Tackles Tiny Molecular Machines
Sunday, March 16, 2014 - 18:35
in Biology & Nature
HOUSTON – (March 13, 2014) –Open, feed, cut. Such is the humdrum life of a motor molecule, the subject of new research at Rice University, that eats and excretes damaged proteins and turns them into harmless peptides for disposal. The why is obvious: Without these trash bins, the Escherichia coli bacteria they serve would die. And thanks to Rice, the how is becoming clearer. Biophysicists at Rice used the miniscule machine – a protease called an FtsH-AAA hexameric peptidase – as a model to test calculations that combine genetic and structural data. Their goal is to solve one of the most compelling mysteries in biology: how proteins perform the regulatory mechanisms in cells upon which life depends. read more