Study yields new insights into how proteins navigate crowded cell-like environments
How do proteins find their way through the dense crowd inside a cell? An international research team, including researchers from the University of Siegen, has investigated this question at the world’s largest X-ray laser – the European XFEL. The results of the measurements show that it is not just the viscosity of the environment that is decisive. The way the molecules influence one another also plays an important role – and can even lead to individual proteins initially moving faster than expected under certain conditions. The study has now been published in the prestigious journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
“Conducting research at European XFEL was a fantastic opportunity and a wonderful experience. As proteins are very small – we’re talking in the nanometre range here – short-wavelength X-rays are well suited to studying them,” says Michelle Dargasz, lead author of the study and a PhD student working with Christian Gutt, Professor of Solid-State Physics at the University of Siegen.
Read more on the European XFEL website
Image: Co-authors Michelle Dargasz (right) and Nimmi Das Anthuparambil at the ‘Materials Imaging and Dynamics’ (MID) instrument at the European XFEL, where the experiments were carried out.
Credit: University of Siegen