An international team of scientists has determined the structure of a protein in its natural environment, the living cell, using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy.

The method links signals from living cells to specific proteins that have been labeled with the stable nitrogen isotope N-15. But since the cells survive for only 5 to 6 hours without supply of oxygen and nutrients, the scientists used computational reconstruction of the complete spectrum to develop a detailed three-dimensional structure of the protein.

Source: e! Science News