Todd Yeates Laboratory

"An illustration of the protein structures that make up the shell of the enigmatic bacterial microcompartment. These giant subcellular shells, reminiscent of viral capsids, are used by many bacteria as primitive organelles inside which certain enzymes are encapsulated in order to perform special chemical reactions in a sequestered environment. These first structures are of the CO2-fixing microcompartment called the carboxysome. Protein structures were determined in the Yeates laboratory by Cheryl Kerfeld, Michael Sawaya, Shiho Tanaka, and Morgan Beeby."