Rubinstein

Awardees from SickKids

SickKids-led researchers receive numerous grants from the Canada Foundation for Innovation

27 March 2021|

Professors Julie Forman-Kay, Simon Sharpe, P. Lynne Howell and John Rubinstein were awarded new CFI funds to help bring new technology to SickKids.

Professors Julie Forman-Kay, and Simon Sharpe, received more than $1.6 million to build on the SickKids Structural and Biophysical Core (SBC) facility. These new funds will support critical enhancements to cutting-edge research, knowledge creation, and training across biology and biophysics, including immunogen design for improved […]

First high resolution structure of a mammalian V-ATPase by the Rubinstein Lab

1 April 2020|

In the latest issue of Science, Professor John Rubinstein‘s lab reports the first high-resolution structure of a mammalian V-ATPase. These ATP-hydrolysis–driven proton pumps are essential for acidification of endosomes, lysosomes, and the trans Golgi network, as well as for acid secretion by osteoclasts, kidney intercalated cells, and some tumor cells.

ATP hydrolysis in the V-ATPase catalytic V1 region drives rotation of a central rotor subcomplex and leads to […]

An image of missing pieces in the structure of vacuolar type ATPase.

Rubinstein lab found one of the missing puzzle pieces in the structure of the vacuolar type ATPase

1 April 2016|

Vacuolar-type ATPases (V-ATPases) are ATP-powered proton pumps involved in numerous essential processes in the cell. The Rubinstein laboratory has recently used cryo-EM to determine 3D structures of the V-ATPase (Zhao et al. 2015, Nature) and the related mitochondrial ATP synthase (Zhou et al. 2015, eLife). These cryo-EM studies have also demonstrated remarkable conformational heterogeneity in the enzymes. While conformational heterogeneity is biologically interesting, it has limited the ability to get atomic resolution structures […]

mitochondrial ATP synthase

Rubinstein Lab publishes paper in eLife

7 October 2015|

The Rubinstein laboratory, along with collaborators at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Janelia Research Campus in Ashburn, Virginia, and Medical Research Council Mitochondrial Biology Unit in Cambridge, England, have just produced the highest-resolution structure available for the mitochondrial ATP synthase. Mitochondria are the ‘powerhouses’ of cells, and ATP synthase is the macromolecular machine that makes the cells supply of ATP, the currency of biochemical energy. Using new cryo-EM […]

Rubinstein Lab Nature Image

Rubinstein Lab captures V-ATPase images, paper published in Nature

19 May 2015|

V-ATPases are proton pumps that control the pH in many compartments within cells. V-ATPase activity is critical for the immune system (where acidic compartments in cells are used to destroy invading bacteria), cell growth (where compartments with different pHs are needed for molecules to be built and destroyed), the transmission of signals in the brain (where V-ATPases are needed to load packets of neurotransmitters that are deposited between neurons), […]