Simon Scheuring's Team "the structure and assembly of membrane proteins in native membranes studied by atomic force microscopy" performs high-resolution atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging and force spectroscopy of membrane proteins.
The atomic force microscope (AFM) has become a powerful tool in structural biology allowing the investigation of biological samples under native-like conditions: experiments are performed in physiological buffer at room temperature and under normal pressure. Topographies of membrane proteins can be acquired at a lateral resolution of ~10Å and a vertical resolution of ~1Å. Importantly, the AFM features an extraordinary signal-to-noise ratio allowing imaging of individual membrane proteins in prokaryotic and eukaryotic native membranes that participate in supramolecular assemblies.
maging techniques in medicine are important for our understanding of pathologies. It is now clear that many pathologies are based on molecular disorders – therefore techniques capable to image at a resolution sufficient to observe single molecules and better must be developed and adapted for medical issues. Nowadays, AFM is a recognized technique able to reveal the structure of supramolecular assemblies of membrane proteins. Using AFM as a medical nano-imaging tool, we imaged healthy and cataract affected eye lens membranes at unprecedented resolution. Crucial differences in organization of the two membrane proteins, aquaporin-0 and connexin, are distinguished between healthy and pathological cases.
Most recently, the power of high-speed atomic force microscopy (HS-AFM) was used to investigate dynamic membrane processes. The perspectives of this novel technology to study membrane-mediated protein-protein interactions are currently evidenced.
Publications with other COST partners:
Nanomechanical characterization of stiffness of eye lens cells: A pilot study
IOVS, 2012, 11 (8678): doi:10.1167/iovs.11-8676
Amela Hozic#, Felix Rico#, Adai Colom-Diego, Nikolay Buzhynskyy & Simon Scheuring*
Two-dimensional kinetics of inter-connexin interactions from single molecule force spectroscopy
J Mol Biol, 2011, 412 (1): 72-79
Felix Rico, Atsunori Oshima, Peter Hinterdorfer, Yoshinori Fujiyoshi & Simon Scheuring*
Recent Publications from the team:
Direct quantitative measurement of mechanical properties of domain phases in lipid bilayers
Biophys J, 2012, 102 (1): doi:10.1016/j.bpj.2011.11.4001
Laura Picas, Felix Rico & Simon Scheuring*
Rhodopsin is spatially heterogeneously distributed in rod outer segment disk membranes
J Mol Rec, 2011, 24 (3): 483-489
Nikolay Buzhynskyy, Christian Salesse & Simon Scheuring*
Mechanical mapping of single proteins at the submolecular level
Nano Letters, 2011, 11 (9): 3983-3986
Felix Rico, Chanmin Su & Simon Scheuring*
Forces guiding assembly of LH2 complexes in native membranes
PNAS, 2011, 108 (23): 9455-9459
Lu-Ning Liu, Katia Duquesne, Filipp Oesterhelt, James N Sturgis & Simon Scheuring*
www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1004205108 pdf
Two-dimensional kinetics of inter-connexin interactions from single molecule force spectroscopy
J Mol Biol, 2011, 412 (1): 72-79
Felix Rico, Atsunori Oshima, Peter Hinterdorfer, Yoshinori Fujiyoshi & Simon Scheuring*
Native architecture of the photosynthetic membrane from Rhodobacter veldkampii
J Struct Biol, 2011, 173 (1): 138-145
Lu-Ning Liu, Filipp Oesterhelt, James N Sturgis & Simon Scheuring*
Experimental evidence for membrane-mediated protein-protein interaction
Biophys J, 2010, 99 (7): 47-49
Ignacio Casuso, Pierre Sens, Felix Rico & Simon Scheuring*
Antenna mixing in photosynthetic membranes from Phaeospirillum molischianum
PNAS, 2010, 107 (12): 5357-5362
Camille Mascle-Allemand, Katia Duquesne, Regine Lebrun, Simon Scheuring & James N. Sturgis*
Automated setpoint adjustment for biological contact mode AFM imaging
Nanotechnology, 2010, 21 (3): 35104-35111
Ignacio Casuso & Simon Scheuring*