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Latest top papers from our institute

New findings on SARS-CoV-2 protein shed light on virus’ ability to infect cells.

Beata Turoňová et al. In situ structural analysis of SARS-CoV-2 spike reveals flexibility mediated by three hinges. Science, 18 August 2020

Rotary substates of mitochondrial ATP synthase reveal the basis of flexible F1-Fo coupling.

Murphy, B.J., et al. Science 364, eaaw9128.

Structure and assembly of the mitochondrial membrane remodeling GTPase Mgm1.

Faelber, K, et al. (2019). Nature 571, 429-433.

Benchmarking tomographic acquisition schemes for high-resolution structural biology

Turoňová, B., et al. (2020). Nature Communications 11, 876

Nuclear Pores Assemble from Nucleoporin Condensates During Oogenesis.

Hampoelz, B., et al. (2019). Cell 179(3):671-686

Curvature induction and membrane remodeling by FAM134B reticulon homology domain assist selective ER-phagy.

Bhaskara, R.M., et al. (2019). Nature Communications 10, 2370

Dynamic cluster formation determines viscosity and diffusion in dense protein solutions.

von Bülow, S., et al. (2019). Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 116, 9843-52

Molybdate pumping into the molybdenum storage protein via an ATP-powered piercing mechanism.

Brünle, S., et al. (2019). Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 116, 26497-26504 (2019).

Our latest Press Releases

Study unravels details of autophagy machinery assembly

September 07, 2020

Researchers from the University of Vienna, the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Cologne and the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt am Main succeeded in the reconstitution of the autophagosome nucleation using recombinant ...

Nuclear pores in their natural context

September 02, 2020

Scientists from the Max Planck Institutes of Biophysics and Biochemistry and the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, led by Boris Pfander, Jan Kosinski und Martin Beck have studied the 3D structure of nuclear pores in budding yeast (Saccharomyces ...

Flexible and protected – New findings on SARS-CoV-2 protein shed light on virus’ ability to infect cells.

August 18, 2020

In the fight against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 researchers from various research institutions in Germany joined forces to study the spike protein on the surface of the virus – this protein allows the virus to bind to and to infect human cells. The ...

COVID-19 research: Anti-viral strategy with double effect

July 29, 2020

When the SARS-CoV-2 virus penetrates human cells, it lets the human host cell produce proteins for it. One of these viral proteins, called PLpro, is essential for the replication and rapid spread of the virus. An international team of researchers led ...

A new approach for higher resolution structure determination of macromolecules in their native context

July 27, 2020

Cryo-electron tomography that was combined with subtomogram averaging (StA) has yielded high-resolution structures of macromolecules in their native context. However, high-resolution StA is not commonplace due to beam-induced sample drift, images ...

How smart, ultrathin nanosheets go fishing for proteins

July 20, 2020

An interdisciplinary team from Frankfurt am Main and Jena has developed a kind of bait with which to fish protein complexes out of mixtures. Thanks to this “bait”, the desired protein is available much faster for further examination in the electron ...

Water exchange in magnesium’s hydration shells impacts biological processes

July 02, 2020

The dynamics of water exchange in the first hydration shell of magnesium are important to a variety of biological phenomena. Despite the importance, the microscopic mechanism of water exchange could not be resolved so far since it is out of reach for ...

A molecular view on protein retrotranslocation

April 27, 2020

Researchers at Harvard Medical School (USA), New York University School of Medicine (USA) and the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics developed a model of how misfolded proteins are recognised and retrotranslocated by the Hrd1 ubiquitin ligase complex ...