Three possible conformations of an intrinsically disordered protein:
collapsed (purple), expanded (gold) and a combination of collapsed
and expanded (red). Image created by Kristina Davis, University
of Notre Dame.
BioCAT staff have just published a review article, Ma & Irving, 2022 Int.
J. Mol. Sci. 2022, 23(6), 3052, on
the use of small angle X-ray fiber diffraction for studying skeletal and
cardiac muscle disease. The article consists of a guided tour of the
various diffraction features that can be used to extract specific pieces
of information that can be used to provide insights into the structural
basis of pathology. The article also contains a comprehensive review of
the literature reporting diffraction studies of muscle that illustrates
how small angle fiber diffraction has increased our understanding of
specific muscle diseases such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, dilated
cardiomyopathy, and nemaline myopathy.