Molecular conformation articles from across Nature Portfolio

Complexity is a hallmark of biological systems, but scientific experiments are typically conducted in simplified conditions. Now, diverse polymers that mimic the local environments of complex biological mixtures have been shown to improve protein folding, stability and function.

Although critically important for protein function, post-translational modifications are complex and notoriously difficult to study. Now, the effects of O-GlcNAcylation on chaperone activity and the accompanying inhibition of amyloid fibril formation have been revealed, potentially yielding new routes to combat neurodegeneration.

The crystal structure of an oligosaccharyltransferase in complex with a sugar donor and an acceptor peptide provides insight into the mechanism of protein glycosylation and reveals how lipid-linked oligosaccharides are positioned in the enzyme active site.

Membrane transporter proteins are critical for cellular uptake and export of molecules, and are reported to function by a number of different molecular mechanisms. The new occluded state structure of the uracil transporter, UraA, from Escherichia coli, reveals that both coordinated movement of the two domains of a single protomer together with dimer formation are important for transport activity.

Although energy-dependent protein destruction by the proteasome has been known for over 30 years, how this intricate molecular machine uses ATP to power protein degradation has remained very poorly understood. In a recently published paper, Ding et al. present a snapshot of the proteasome mid-catalysis, yielding new and unexpected insights into the catalytic mechanism of this ATP-powered multisubunit machine.