High-coherence, ultracold electron diffraction for molecular movies of membrane proteins
Proteins are the workhorses of life, as they are the molecules that perform all processes of living organisms. Understanding how they work helps to cure diseases. It would therefore be very useful if we could see them, but they are very small and they move extremely fast. In this project, led by Dr. Julius Huijts, we try to develop a kind of microscope with a high-speed camera so that we can film proteins and see how they work.
For this, we have made a special setup that generates extremely short flashes of electrons, so that we can get very quick snapshots of the proteins. These electron flashes also need to be of very high quality, and that is why we generate them from atoms that are extremely cold, close to absolute zero temperature. By combining different snapshots at different moments we plan to reconstitute a molecular movie of the protein.
Looptijd
September 2022 - March 2025Partners
Project manager
Membrane proteins are responsible for all traffic and communication between cells. Their misfunctioning is at the heart of a plethora of diseases. But, notoriously difficult to study, they are poorly understood. Cryo-electron microscopy has recently revealed structures of some of these proteins, but as the samples are frozen the obtained images are inherently static.
Now imagine that we could have an instrument that allows to make movies of such proteins, thus unraveling not only their structure but also their function. In this project, we will develop a unique, table-top setup based on the diffraction of ultracold electrons that does exactly that.
We use a source that is unique in the world, that generates pulses of ultracold electrons that are in principle sufficiently short, intense and coherent to enable time-resolved electron diffraction on 2D crystals of membrane proteins. Through a pump-probe experiment we will follow the light-induced conformational change of bacteriorhodopsin, a model membrane protein. This will be the first molecular movie of a protein ever obtained on a table-top setup.
Our Partners
-
Applied Physics and Science 果冻传媒
Lees meer -
Institute for Complex Molecular Systems
Lees meer