I was over the moon last week to receive an update (available here) on the cryo-electron microscopy grid preparation from Dr Justin Deme, a post doc in Prof Susan Lea’s lab. Using the full-length huntingtin protein samples I prepared, Justin is preparing very small grids with the protein on them so that we can look Read More …

Hello lab scribbles readers! I have been busy in the lab making lots of protein for some upcoming electron microscopy experiments – all materials and methods can be found on Zenodo. These proteins are the complete full-length human huntingtin protein with either 23, 46 or 78 glutamine amino acids in the polyQ repeat stretch representing Read More …

Things are moving fast in the lab which is exciting as it means the project is moving forward quickly too. However, it does mean that I now have lots of data to share in this post! Firstly, thanks to very generous sharing of reagents from Dr. Ihn Sik Seong, we are now able to make Read More …

For the past week or so I have been continuing to conduct an analysis of post-translational modifications or PTMs of the huntingtin protein. After the protein is expressed in the cell, it is often chemically modified by small moieties which can affect its fold and function called PTMs. In my last post I looked at Read More …

For the past week or so I have been conducting an analysis of post-translational modifications of the huntingtin protein. After the protein is expressed in the cell, it is then often chemically modified by small moieties which can affect its fold and function. In this instance, I have been looking at the phosphorylation of the Read More …

Previously I reported some exciting test expression data where we showed that small chunks of the huntingtin protein could be made in the lab, a key milestone to aid future experiments where we try and work out what the huntingtin protein looks like and what it might be doing in the cells of our bodies. Since Read More …