Publications related to Macromolecular assembly

Structure-function analysis of the cyclic β-1,2-glucan synthase from Agrobacterium tumefaciens

Henning Paul-Julius Stahlberg, Dongchun Ni

The synthesis of complex sugars is a key aspect of microbial biology. Cyclic beta-1,2-glucan (C beta G) is a circular polysaccharide critical for host interactions of many bacteria, including major pathogens of humans (Brucella) and plants (Agrobacterium). ...

Nature Portfolio2024

Advancements in Nanomechanical Characterization and Biomolecular Imaging with Atomic force Microscopy

Veronika Cencen

Atomic force microscopy (AFM) is a widely used imaging tool for obtaining a variety of information for a range of samples. Although it was initially intended to serve as a method of observing very flat solid surfaces, its use expanded into several other fi ...

EPFL2024

Information Theory in Transmembrane Transport

Solange Marie Flatt

The past decades have seen the advent of information theory in various fields, from quantum physics to cosmology. At an intermediary scale between atomic and cosmological scales are biological systems and in particular the cell, as a constitutive element o ...

EPFL2023

A Geometric Transformer for Structural Biology: Development and Applications of the Protein Structure Transformer

Lucien Fabrice Krapp

Proteins, the central building blocks of life, play pivotal roles in nearly every biological function. To do so, these macromolecular structures interact with their surrounding environment in complex ways, leading to diverse functional behaviors. The predi ...

EPFL2023

Biological nanopores for single-molecule sensing

Matteo Dal Peraro, Chan Cao, Simon Finn Mayer

Evolution has found countless ways to transport material across cells and cellular compartments separated by membranes. Protein assemblies are the cornerstone for the formation of channels and pores that enable this regulated passage of molecules in and ou ...

2022

Single-Chain Nanoparticles for Intracellular Drug Delivery

Suiyang Liao

Single-chain nanoparticles (SCNPs) are a type of polymeric nanoparticles formed by collapsing/folding individual polymer chains via intra-molecular interactions. Their emergence holds promise to construct sub-20 nm polymeric nanoparticles with defined stru ...

EPFL2022

New Methods for the Integrative Dynamic Modeling of Biomolecular Structures

Sylvain Träger

The true understanding of most cellular functions is only really achievable through the structural determination of their underlying macromolecular assemblies. However, their size, large number of individual components and metastable states make their eluc ...

EPFL2021

Structural and analytical identifications of biomolecules by cold ion spectroscopy of non-covalent complexes

Erik Saparbayev

Non-covalent interactions are ubiquitous in nature. The diversity and functionality of these interactions are employed by nature as a universal tool for building the molecular mechanism of life. Although weak, these interactions play a key role in both for ...

EPFL2021

Structural Order of the Molecular Adlayer Impacts the Stability of Nanoparticle-on-Mirror Plasmonic Cavities

Christophe Marcel Georges Galland, Magalí Alejandra Lingenfelder, Sachin Suresh Verlekar, Fernando Pablo Cometto, Karla Banjac, Aqeel Ahmed

Immense field enhancement and nanoscale confinement of light are possible within nanoparticle-on-mirror (NPoM) plasmonic resonators, which enable novel optically activated physical and chemical phenomena and render these nanocavities greatly sensitive to m ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2021

Half-clathrochelate Complexes as Versatile Links in Supramolecular Chemistry

Erica Giraldi

Clathrochelate complexes have been widely investigated with different size and shape and used as building blocks for the obtainment of discrete supramolecular architectures. These clathrochelate complexes are very stable and kinetically inert complexes. A ...

EPFL2021

MOCCA: Modeling and Optimizing Cone-joints for Complex Assemblies

Mark Pauly, Peng Song

We present a computational framework for modeling and optimizing complex assemblies using cone joints. Cone joints are integral joints that generalize traditional single-direction joints such as mortise and tenon joints to support a general cone of directi ...

2021

Self-assembly of protein-polymer conjugates for drug delivery

Harm-Anton Klok, Kuljeet Kaur, Corey Alfred Stevens

Protein-polymer conjugates are a class of molecules that combine the stability of polymers with the diversity, specificity, and functionality of biomolecules. These bioconjugates can result in hybrid materials that display properties not found in their ind ...

2021

Modeling Immunity with Rosetta: Methods for Antibody and Antigen Design

Bruno Emanuel Ferreira De Sousa Correia, Jaume Bonet Martinez

Structure-based antibody and antigen design has advanced greatly in recent years, due not only to the increasing availability of experimentally determined structures but also to improved computational methods for both prediction and design. Constant improv ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2021

Boronate Ester-Capped Helicates

Rosario Scopelliti, Kay Severin, Farzaneh Fadaei Tirani, Daniel Ortiz Trujillo, Adrien Bryan Depallens, Erica Giraldi

Triple‐stranded helicates were obtained by metal‐templated multicomponent reactions of bispyridyloxime ligands with arylboronic acids. The helicates feature two hexa‐coordinated MII ions (M=Fe, Zn, or Mn), which are embedded in a macrobicyclic ligand frame ...

2020

Identifying and Tracking Defects in Dynamic Supramolecular Polymers

Michele Ceriotti, Piero Gasparotto

A central paradigm of self-assembly is to create ordered structures starting from molecular monomers that spontaneously recognize and interact with each other via noncovalent interactions. In recent years, great efforts have been directed toward perfecting ...

AMER CHEMICAL SOC2020

Electrochemical Assay for Extremely Selective Recognition of Fructose Based on 4-Ferrocene-Phenylboronic Acid Probe and beta-Cyclodextrins Supramolecular Complex

Sandro Carrara, Irene Taurino, Maria Antonietta Casulli

The aim of the present paper is to highlight a novel electrochemical assay for an extremely-selective detection of fructose thanks to the use of a supramolecular complex between beta-cyclodextrins (beta-CDs) and a chemically modified ferrocene with boronic ...

2020

Structures of three MORN repeat proteins and a re-evaluation of the proposed lipid-binding properties of MORN repeats

Charlotte Julie Caroline Gehin

MORN (Membrane Occupation and Recognition Nexus) repeat proteins have a wide taxonomic distribution, being found in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Despite this ubiquity, they remain poorly characterised at both a structural and a functional level compare ...

2020

The role of xanthophylls in the supramolecular organization of the photosynthetic complex LHCII in lipid membranes studied by high-resolution imaging and nanospectroscopy

Giovanni Dietler, Serguei Sekatski, Jiangtao Zhou

The xanthophyll cycle is a regulatory mechanism operating in the photosynthetic apparatus of plants. It consists of the conversion of the xanthophyll pigment violaxanthin to zeaxanthin, and vice versa, in response to light intensity. According to the curre ...

ELSEVIER2020

Photons in - numbers out: perspectives in quantitative fluorescence microscopy for in situ protein counting

Kristin Stefanie Grussmayer

The full understanding of cellular functions requires information about protein numbers for various biomolecular assemblies and their dynamics, which can be partly accessed by super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. Yet, many protein assemblies and cellu ...

2019

Carbohydrate Self-Assembly at Surfaces: STM Imaging of Sucrose Conformation and Ordering on Cu(100)

Klaus Kern, Stephan Rauschenbach, Sabine Abb

Saccharides are ubiquitous biomolecules, but little is known about their interaction with, and assembly at, surfaces. By combining preparative mass spectrometry with scanning tunneling microscopy, we have been able to address the conformation and self-asse ...

Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH2019