UNDERSTANDING CELL SECRETION AND MEMBRANE FUSION PROCESSES ON THE NANOSCALE USING THE ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPE - Life at the Nanoscale: Atomic Force Microscopy of Live Cells - page 112

have advanced without AFM, and therefore this powerful tool has greatly
contributed to a new understanding of the cell. AFM has enabled the
determination of live cellular structure-function at sub-nanometer to
angstrom resolution, in real time, contributing to the birth of the new field
of “Nano Cell Biology”. Future directions will involve an understanding of
the protein distribution and their arrangement at atomic resolution in the
porosome complex and a similar understanding of the structure of the
t-/v-SNARE ring complex. Determination of the atomic structure of
membrane-associated full-length SNAREs and their complexes, and of the
neuronal porosome complex, is being further advanced using cryoelectron
microscopy in the author's laboratory.

Acknowledgement

The author thanks the many students and collaborators who have
participated in the various studies discussed in this article. Research in the
author's laboratory was supported by the grants from the NIH, NSF and
Wayne State University.

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