Watching protein structure at work in living cells using NMR spectroscopy

Isotope-assisted multi-dimensional NMR spectroscopy can now be applied to proteins inside living cells. The technique, called in-cell NMR, aims to investigate the structures, interactions and dynamics of proteins under their native conditions, ideally at an atomic resolution. The application has begun with bacterial cells but has now expanded to mammalian cultured cells, such as HeLa cells. The importance of the realization of such 'in-mammalian cell' NMR should be stressed, as these are the cells most often employed in cell biology. Hence, a substantially wide range of application would be possible in the near future once the technique has been well developed.