Biomolecular Structural Biology

Geis highlights the hundreds of chemical bonds in the lattice of myoglobin.

Geis illustrated the structure of myoglobin, focusing on the folding pattern of the secondary structure of the protein. Unlike previous myoglobin Illustrations, this painting focuses on the tertiary structure of the molecule rather than the sequence or surface.

Geis illustrates the structure of the ribonuclease S that highlights the dinucleotide RNA substrate in red and the four disulfide bonds in yellow.

In Hendrickson and Teeter's molecular study in 1981, the crystal structure of crambin, a small seed storage protein, was determined based on the location of sulfur atoms in the protein. Using an artistic approach, Geis utilizes bright yellow shading and orange coloring to highlight the importance of these 6 sulfur atoms in this ball-and-stick representation. The backbone of the protein is depicted in blue.

The colored print depicts the structure of myohemerythrin, which was first revealed by X-ray crystallography in 1975 (Hendrickson et al., 1975) and further refined in 1987 (Sheriff et al., 1987). Geis's illustration depicts the tertiary structure of the protein, highlighting the four anti-parallel alpha-helices and the presence of mu-oxo-diiron (iron atoms in red and oxygen atom in pink) located within the core of the macromolecule (Myohemerythrin).