Determining the 3-D structure of phages at atomic resolution

Phages have become a focus of research in the battle against antibiotic resistance. These bacteria-eating viruses have already proven effective in experiments against multidrug-resistant bacteria. However, the atomic structure of these small helpers is unknown. Researchers at the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie (FMP) in Berlin have now succeeded in developing a new method that makes it possible to determine the complex structure in detail, down to the atomic level. Their work is a further development in solid-state NMR and was published in the specialist journals Angewandte Chemie and Nature Protocols.