Tri-Cities Tech Business Update
Trapping proteins that work together inside living cells
Researchers at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., have developed a new crosslinking tool that is small and unobtrusive enough to use in live cells to try to understand how proteins work together and which ones work together. Using the new tool, the scientists have discovered never-before-seen details about a well-studied complex of proteins known as RNA polymerase. The results suggest the method might uncover collaborations between proteins that are too brief for other techniques to pinpoint. "Conventional methods used to find interacting proteins have limitations that we are trying to circumvent," said biochemist Uljana Mayer of the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "They also create conditions that are different from those inside cells, so you can't find all the interactions that proteins would normally engage in." The results of the research were reported in the June 15 edition of the journal ChemBioChem. Read the full news release.
