Peeking into living eukaryotic cells with high-resolution NMR

For a biological chemist, possessing atomic-level knowledge of all of the molecules inside a livi ng cell would be nirvana. Until recently, however, biological macromolecules were almost always removed from cells before study at the atomic level. Such reductionism has taught us a lot—just try lifting a general biochemistry text—but the approach is inherently limiting because information about biological context is lost. With the advent of in-cell NMR, it is now possible to study atoms in biological macromolecules while they remain in living cells (1). An article by Selenko et al. (2) in this issue of PNAS marks an important advance in these endeavors by providing the first high-resolution glimpse into how the cytoplasm of a higher eukaryotic cell can affect the properties of a folded protein.

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