Spontaneous Assembly: A New Look At How Proteins Assemble And Organize Themselves Into Complex Patterns
July 9, 2009 | Source: Science Daily
The chemotaxis network of signaling proteins in E.coli bacteria is able to spontaneously form from clusters of proteins in complex pattterns in “stochastic self-assembly,” a team of researchers has found, using an ultrahigh-precision visible light microscopy technique called PALM (Photo-Activated Localization Microscopy).
PALM composite of an E.coli bacterial cell shows the organization of proteins in the chemotaxis signaling network (DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory)
Signaling proteins direct the movement of the bacteria towards or away from sugars, amino acids, and many other soluble molecules in response to environmental cues.
The demonstration that stochastic self-assembly is capable of organizing thousands of proteins into complex and reproducible patterns holds promise for a wide range of applications in nanotechnology, including the fabrication of nanodevices and the development of nanoelectronic circuits.