Browsing by Author "Berger, Imre"

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    Baculovirus expression: tackling the complexity challenge
    (Elsevier, 2013-06) Barford, David; Takagi, Yuichiro; Schultz, Patrick; Berger, Imre; Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Medicine
    Most essential functions in eukaryotic cells are catalyzed by complex molecular machines built of many subunits. To fully understand their biological function in health and disease, it is imperative to study these machines in their entirety. The provision of many essential multiprotein complexes of higher eukaryotes including humans, can be a considerable challenge, as low abundance and heterogeneity often rule out their extraction from native source material. The baculovirus expression vector system (BEVS), specifically tailored for multiprotein complex production, has proven itself to be uniquely suited for overcoming this impeding bottleneck. Here we highlight recent major achievements in multiprotein complex structure research that were catalyzed by this versatile recombinant complex expression tool.
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    MultiBac: expanding the research toolbox for multiprotein complexes
    (Elsevier, 2012-02) Bieniossek, Christoph; Imasaki, Tsuyoshi; Takagi, Yuichiro; Berger, Imre; Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Medicine
    Protein complexes composed of many subunits carry out most essential processes in cells and, therefore, have become the focus of intense research. However, deciphering the structure and function of these multiprotein assemblies imposes the challenging task of producing them in sufficient quality and quantity. To overcome this bottleneck, powerful recombinant expression technologies are being developed. In this review, we describe the use of one of these technologies, MultiBac, a baculovirus expression vector system that is particularly tailored for the production of eukaryotic multiprotein complexes. Among other applications, MultiBac has been used to produce many important proteins and their complexes for their structural characterization, revealing fundamental cellular mechanisms.