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Atomic force microscopy of purple membranes
D L Worcester1, R G Miller, P J Bryant
1Biology Division, University of Missouri, Columbia 65211.
Journal of Microscopy
|December 1, 1988
Abstract:
The surface structure of purple membranes was imaged using an atomic force probe mounted in a scanning tunnelling microscope. One of the two different membrane surfaces showed protruding, disc-shaped features forming an hexagonal lattice with about 6 nm centre to centre spacing. These are identified as the cytoplasmic surfaces of trimers of bacteriorhodopsin molecules and are correlated with the structural information on bacteriorhodopsin obtained from numerous earlier electron microscope and diffraction studies.