Work

Determination of Rigidity of Protein Bound Au144 Clusters by Electron Cryomicroscopy

Year: 2010

Type: article

Abstract: A method for estimating the positional displacement of protein bound gold nanoparticles is presented and used to estimate the rigidity of linkage of Au(144) nanoparticles bound to a tetrameric model protein. We observe a distribution of displacement values where most Au(144) clusters are immobilized to within 3Å relative to the protein center of mass. The shape of the distribution suggests two physical processes of thermal motion and protein deformation. The application of this and similar rigid gold nanoparticle/protein conjugates in high resolution single particle electron cryo-microscopy is discussed.

Source: The Journal of Physical Chemistry C

DOI: 10.1021/jp101970x

Authors: Jonathan Z. Sexton, Christopher J. Ackerson

Institutions: North Carolina Central University, Colorado State University

Language: English

Topic: Advanced Electron Microscopy Techniques and Applications

Subfield: Structural Biology

Field: Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: green