Cryo-electron microscopy characterizes integrins
Tuesday, July 31, 2018 - 10:11
in Health & Medicine
A collaboration between three labs at UC San Francisco has resulted in an unprecedented look at a member of a vital and ubiquitous class of proteins called integrins (pronounced "INT-uh-grins"). Integrins are associated with fibrosis, scarring and stiffening of tissues that is associated with nearly half of all deaths in developed countries, and yet researchers had no high-resolution structural model of the proteins in their active state. Now, a combination of perseverance, technological achievement and insight has pinned down an elusive moving target.