Much of our knowledge about proteins inside biological cells comes from methods, where cellular proteins are extracted from their native environment. This approach has yielded basic information on each protein's structure and function averaged across distinct subcellular compartments, cell states, and, sometimes, cell types. However, the functional demands from different (sub)cellular environments vary. To probe the structural and functional adaptation of proteins in distinct subcellular environments, single-protein characterization has emerged as an important approach. Here we comment on emerging approaches by light and electron microscopy that begin to raise new questions about the distribution, structure, and function of individual protein copies in specific subcellular environments. The advent of single-protein characterization is a key frontier of spatial biology to elucidate the architecture of a single cell.

中文翻译：

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观察蛋白质的自然栖息地

我们关于生物细胞内蛋白质的大部分知识都来自从其天然环境中提取细胞蛋白质的方法。这种方法产生了关于不同亚细胞区室、细胞状态、有时甚至是细胞类型的每种蛋白质结构和功能的平均基本信息。然而，不同（子）细胞环境的功能需求有所不同。为了探究蛋白质在不同亚细胞环境中的结构和功能适应，单蛋白质表征已成为一种重要方法。在这里，我们评论光学和电子显微镜的新兴方法，这些方法开始提出有关特定亚细胞环境中单个蛋白质拷贝的分布、结构和功能的新问题。单蛋白表征的出现是空间生物学阐明单细胞结构的关键前沿。