Structural investigations of biomolecules are typically confined to in vitro systems under extremely limited conditions. These investigations yield invaluable insights, but such experiments cannot capture important structural features imposed by cellular environments. Structural studies of proteins in their native contexts are not only possible using state-of-the-art sensitivity-enhanced (dynamic nuclear polarization, DNP) solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques, but these studies also demonstrate that the cellular context can and does have a dramatic influence on protein structure. In this chapter, we describe methods to prepare samples of isotopically labeled proteins at endogenous levels in cellular contexts alongside quality control methods to ensure that such samples accurately model important features of the cellular environment.
Keywords: Amyloids; Dynamic nuclear polarization; In situ structural biology; In-cell NMR; NMR; Prions; Sup35.
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