Methods and applications in integrative structural biology

Accurate structural models of biological systems can be obtained by integrative approaches that properly combine multiple sources of information, such as experimental data and a priori physico-chemical knowledge. In this talk, I will give an overview of the methodological approaches that we have been developing as well as a series of applications to systems of outstanding biological importance. Specifically, I will focus on the determination of structural ensembles of intrinsically disordered systems using NMR data and on the use of cryo-electron microscopy data to unravel the continuous dynamics of flexible parts of ordered systems. Finally, I will present an open-source, freely-available module of the PLUMED library (www.plumed.org), which enables the simultaneous determination of structure and dynamics of conformationally heterogeneous systems by integrating experimental data with a priori information.