Hyperpolarized Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy for Time-Resolved Monitoring of Interactions of Intrinsically Disordered Breast-Cancer Proteins

The growing realisation a couple of decades ago that intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) with tremendous conformational flexibility and structural plasticity are widespread and functionally significant, has turned protein science on its head. Mutations of breast cancer susceptibility protein 1 (BRCA1), an IDP, significantly increase the risk of developing hereditary breast or ovarian cancer. However, difficulty studying it due to its disorder has left mastectomy as the only treatment. The EU-funded HYPROTIN project is developing a research platform that will enable studies of BRCA1 with extremely high temporal and spatial resolution. This might open new avenues for rational drug design for many pathologies linked to IDPs.