Figure 6.

A3G can exist in compact globular and extended dumbbell conformations. (a) Selected frames from Movie S7. The size of the images is 40 nm. The scanning rate corresponds to 398 ms per frame. (b) A representative AFM image of the globular-shaped A3G monomer. Inset i provides the definition of d₁ and d₂. Inset ii shows the plot of fluctuations of the d₁/d₂ ratio of A3G monomer calculated for ∼250 frames captured. The mean value of the d₁/d₂ ratio is equal to 1.3 ± 0.3. (c) A representative image of the dumbbell-shaped A3G monomer. Inset iii presents the cross section of the dumbbell structure as measured by AFM. Inset iv shows the histogram of the measured d₃ distance between two maxima, obtained from 3 separate movies. The maximum corresponds to 4.5 ± 1.0 nm.