antenna

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have figured out the orientation of a protein in the antenna complex to its neighboring membrane in a photosynthetic bacterium, a key find in the process of energy transfer in photosynthesis. Robert Blankenship, Ph.D., Markey Distinguished Professor of Biology and Chemistry in Arts & Sciences, led a team that for the first time combined chemical labeling with mass spectroscopy to verify the orientation. The team also included Michael Gross, Ph.D., WUSTL Professor of Chemistry, Immunology and Medicine, and Chemistry graduate students Jianzhong Wen and Hao Zhang. A paper describing this work appeared recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA.

<img src="/news/PublishingImages/4048_t.jpg" alt="Pretty fly — for a fruit fly. The areas stained blue are regions in the fruit fly where the spineless gene is expressed.” height=”211″ width=”150″ />Pretty fly – for a fruit fly. The areas stained blue are regions in the fruit fly where the spineless gene is expressed.A team of researchers that includes biologists from Washington University in St. Louis has discovered that a gene involved in the development and function of the fruit fly antenna also gives the organism its color vision. Claude Desplan, Ph.D., professor of biology at New York University, and his students made the discovery and provided the data. Ian Duncan, Washington University professor of biology, and his wife, research assistant Dianne Duncan, provided the Desplan laboratory fruit fly (Drosophila) clones and mutants and technical assistance that helped locate where the gene, called spineless, is expressed in the retina. More…