The Rockefeller University » Newswire

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http://newswire.rockefeller.edu/?page=engine&id=1157

Description

Whether you’re talking about genes, or neurons, or the workings of a virus, at the most fundamental level, biology is a matter of proteins. So understanding what protein complexes look like and how they operate is the key to figuring out what makes cells tick. By harnessing the unique properties of polarized light, Rockefeller scientists have now developed a new technique that can help deduce the orientation of specific proteins within the cell. By turning their instruments toward the nuclear pore complex, a huge cluster of proteins that serves as a gateway to a cell’s nucleus, the scientists say they have filled in the gaps left by other techniques and made important new discoveries about how the complex