02 April 2009

Nuclear Magnetic Crystallography part II

In what can only be seens as a cosmic convergence, a second paper has appeared on NMR-X-ray hybridization. This one is a collaboration from Medivir, The University of Florence, and Bruker Biospin. This method is aimed at generating structural information for a family of related proteins (in this case MMPs). The authors argue that the cost of 13C and 15N labeling is so low that such samples should be readily available, making this method widely applicable. The thrust of their method is the use of X-filtered NOESY spectroscopy to generate distance constraints, then use Autodock to determine binding. I expect that this will get covered on our FriendBlog, the FBDD-Lit Blog, so I won't go into many details.
Instead I would like to make this a discussion of the perceived value of methods such as this to the FBDD community. I, despite being an NMR jock by trade, don't feel that labeled protein methods, give enough bang for the buck, compared to ligand-based methods. Will methods such as described Isaksson et al. change that cost-benefit analysis?
What do other people think about the value and the proper role of NMR?

No comments: