Conformational flexibility of fatty acid synthase

Conformational flexibility of fatty acid synthase

Fatty acid synthase is composed of several catalytic domains that work in sequence. Asturias and colleagues use single-particle EM analysis of rat FAS to reveal the movements of the domains during the reaction cycle. The cover image of a flamenco dancer represents the complex motions of FAS in action (copyright Emanuele Ferrari, iStockphoto).

From the article:
“Conformational flexibility of metazoan fatty acid synthase enables catalysis.”
Edward J Brignole, Stuart Smith and Francisco J Asturias
Nature Structural & Molecular Biology v16, pp 190 – 197 (2009)

Edward J Brignole, Stuart Smith and Francisco J Asturias