The entire protein household of yeast: 257 machines that had never been observed
And now for another amazing example of what natural selection can accomplish (or not):
Press Release
Heidelberg, 22 January 2006
http://www.embl.org/aboutus/news/press/2006/press22jan06.htmlThe closest look ever at the cell’s machines: The first genome-wide screen for protein complexes is completed
“To carry out their tasks, most proteins work in dynamic complexes that may contain dozens of molecules,” says Giulio Superti-Furga, who launched the large-scale project at Cellzome four years ago. “If you think of the cell as a factory floor, up to now, we’ve known some of the components of a fraction of the machines. That has seriously limited what we know about how cells work. This study gives us a nearly complete parts list of all the machines, and it goes beyond that to tell us how they populate the cell and partition tasks among themselves.” The study combined a method of extracting complete protein complexes from cells [tandem affinity purification, developed in 2001 by Bertrand Séraphin at EMBL], mass spectrometry and bioinformatics to investigate the entire protein household of yeast, turning up 257 machines that had never been observed. It also revealed new components of nearly every complex already known. Read More ›