Spinning Spider Proteins

Tarantula spider proteins have helped scientists to understand for the first time how genetic changes in heart muscle cause different forms of cardiomyopathy, one of the most common causes of heart failure and sudden death in otherwise healthy young people. At first glance, hairy eight-legged spiders appear to have little in common with people. But some of the proteins that make up a spider’s muscles are similar to those in our own bodies, including our hearts. Researchers chose to study spider proteins because it allowed them to explore their 3D structure and how they interact with their neighbours in much greater detail than is possible with human models. They focused on the muscle protein myosin. Here, different parts of myosin are shown in different colours. Coloured dots indicate mutations that block it from interacting with other proteins, which in turn stops the heart from relaxing, and can cause cardiomyopathy.

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Written by Deborah Oakley

• Image/video from work by Lorenzo Alamo, James S. Ware Christine E. Seidman and Raúl Padrón
• MRC London Institute of Medical Sciences, Imperial College London; Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research; Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, June 2017