Recently the students of the Systems Approaches to Biomedical Science Centre for Doctoral Training took a 2-week module on our favourite subject: structural biology! As part of this, they were given the option to create their very own 3D printed model of a protein.

This year we had some great models created, some of which are shown in the picture above. The proteins are (clockwise from top left):

• Clathrin (PDB 1XI4) – a really interesting protein that forms cages around vesicles inside the cell. This one was mine; I wrote about clathrin as part of my undergraduate dissertation many years ago…
• GTPase (PDB 1YZN) – a protein that can bind and hydrolyse guanosine triphosphate (GTP), involved in membrane trafficking
• TAL effector (PDB 3UGM) – this bacterial protein binds to specific regions of DNA in a host plant to activate the expression of plant genes that aid bacterial infection. The DNA here is in blue, the orange wrapped around it is the protein.
• Mechanotransduction ion channel (PDB 5VKQ) – converts mechanical stimuli into electrical signals in specialized sensory cells.
• ATP synthase – this protein machine builds most of the energy storage molecule ATP, which powers our cellular processes.
• DNA (PDB 5F9I) – a double-helix strand of DNA, 20 base pairs long.