Ancestral Reconstruction Approach to Acetylcholine Receptor Structure and Function

Analyzing protein structure and function using ancestral gene reconstruction.

Protein families with functionally diverse members can illuminate the structural determinants of protein function and the process by which protein structure and function evolve. To identify the key amino acid changes that differentiate one family member from another, most studies have taken a horizontal approach, swapping candidate residues between present-day family members. This approach has ...

Synthetic gene technology: applications to ancestral gene reconstruction and structure-function studies of receptors.

Ancestral Reconstruction

Ancestral reconstruction is the extrapolation back in time from measured characteristics of individuals (or populations) to their common ancestors. It is an important application of phylogenetics, the reconstruction and study of the evolutionary relationships among individuals, populations, or species to their ancestors. In the context of biology, ancestral reconstruction can be used to recover...

Structure and Function of an Acetylcholine

Structural analysis of an acetylcholine receptor from Torpedo californica leads to a three-dimensional model in which a "monomeric" receptor is shown to contain subunits arranged around a central ionophoretic channel, which in turn traverses the entire 1 10 A length of the molecule. The receptor extends 15 A on the cytoplasmic side, 55 A on the synaptic side of the membrane. The a-bungarotoxin/...

Three-dimensional structure of the acetylcholine receptor by cryoelectron microscopy and helical image reconstruction

Long tubular vesicles have been grown from isolated Torpedo postsynaptic membranes, in which the receptors are arranged helically on the vesicle surface. The structures of these tubes have been analyzed by cryoelectron microscopy of specimens embedded in thin films of ice, combined with helical image reconstruction. Complete data sets from tubes belonging to several helical families have been o...