This past few weeks have been busy with fellowship applications, writing grants and papers so I am rather behind on keeping you updated but there has been some exciting progress:
- Susan Lea has made fantastic progress processing cryo-EM data of our samples and we now have a 13 A envelope of the protein: https://zenodo.org/record/841824
A) Negative stain envelope of huntingtin Q46 and B) cryo-EM envelope of huntingtin Q23 both <15 A resolution
2. On the basis of Susan’s work, I have again modified the sample preparation protocol and sent her some EVEN BETTER samples of huntingtin, hopefully bound to DNA. https://zenodo.org/record/841878
3. Making fragments of huntingtin remains challenging but I managed to get some in crystal trays this week: https://zenodo.org/record/841883
4. I also completed a series of pull-downs to look for interactions between huntingtin and both p53 https://zenodo.org/record/841818 and PRC2 https://zenodo.org/record/841811
I am still working on some experiments for HMGB1 – the putative huntingtin interaction so I will update you on that soon!