Lecture 09A
Structural biology
Foundations
Date: Mar 11, 2025
This foundational lecture introduces the field of structural biology, highlighting the biological significance of determining protein structure. Students will explore essential experimental techniques—X-ray crystallography and Cryo-EM—and understand their role, strengths, and limitations, including the challenges posed by structural disorder.
Learning objectives¶
After today, you should have a better understanding of:
- The definition and biological importance of structural biology.
- Basic principles of protein structure.
- X-ray crystallography and Cryo-electron microscopy.
- The challenge of protein disorder.
Supplementary material¶
Relevant content and readings for today's lecture.
- Proteins: Lehninger - Chapter 3
- Protein structure: Lehninger - Chapter 4; Kuriyan, Konforti, Wemmer - Chapter 4
- X-ray diffraction: Allen - Chapter 15; Kalidas, Sangaranarayanan - Chapter 31; Coumar - Chapter 6
- Electron microscopy: Coumar - Chapter 7
- Structure analysis: Pal - Chapter 6
Presentation¶
- View: slides.com/aalexmmaldonado/biosc1540-l09a
- Live link: slides.com/d/Wv7MTEU/live
- Download: biosc1540-l09a.pdf