That’s a wrap of the 2nd edition of our one of a kind structural biology block course at the @biozentrum.unibas.ch! In just 6 short weeks students designed protein oligomers; rotated in cryo-ET, cryo-EM SPA, AFM, and NMR labs; and expressed, purified, and structurally characterized their designs

So much fun to host @edwardmarcotte.bsky.social at the @biozentrum.unibas.ch and introduce him to the @cellarchlab.com, thanks for a wonderful Discovery Seminar!!

We have renamed it to CAGE: Conserved Assembly in Gram-negative bacteria and Eukaryotes; because in addition to shape, it has crazy phylogeny!! And to quote the paper: “The CAGE complex stands as both a new structural archetype and a reminder that the molecular universe is far from fully charted.”

When I first saw it in my micrographs, I thought it looked like a Philadelphia pretzel. After years of explaining a Philly pretzel and receiving endless pretzel pictures (s/o Jamie) and pretzel swag (s/o @sofie-dot-rec.bsky.social)….

The early days looking at this complex were spent with @ghooger.bsky.social on the JEOL 2010F in the basement of UT Austin during the pandemic (while watching Real Housewives)

I am excited to share our new preprint on the CAGE complex, a mysterious hollow protein complex that I first saw years ago while surveying Tetrahymena ciliary lysate www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1... #cilia #protistsonsky 🧬🧪

This work provides functional insights into several poorly-defined ciliopathy proteins, which we were able to test in vertebrate multiciliated cells showing functional interactions

We report over 4,700 protein interactions detailing inter-complex associations, transient interactions, and conformational dynamics

I am excited to share some of my PhD work on the motile cilia interactome revealed by XL/MS with @jbwallingford.bsky.social @edwardmarcotte.bsky.social Ophelia Papoulas, Chanjae Lee, David Taylor, and @builab.bsky.social www.cell.com/developmenta...