Quaternary Structure of Arthropod Hemocyanins

Three-dimensional reconstruction of Limulus polyphemus hemocyanin from cryoelectron microscopy

“…The nature of these interactions and the steric hindrance between LpIIIA subunits in the interface area explain that only¯op/¯op associations are allowed and that Lp Hc is a dimer rather than a polymer of 4 Â 6mers. These data con®rm the ®rst model of Lp Hc published by Lamy et al (1985b).…”

“…Similarly, in its¯op view the molecule stands on the carbon ®lm on its¯op face. This de®nition was generalized to the consensus model by Lamy et al (1985b). Recently, proposed a different convention to designate the¯ip and¯op faces that can be summarized as``in the¯ip view the¯ip face is exposed to the observer''.…”

“…Second, the intramolecular localization of the eight subunits types carried out by immunoelectron microscopy with polyclonal antibodies allowed us to recognize an equivalent portion of the molecule (Lamy et al, 1983). Then, the ®rst consensus 4 Â 6mer models with dodecamers of the right isomeric type were published for the Hcs of the scorpion Androctonus australis (Lamy et al, 1985a) and Lp (Lamy et al, 1985b).…”