Sealy Center for Structural Biology


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SCSB Crystallography News

Wow, I didn't know we could do that!

Collect Data on Micro-crystals in-house

The recent upgrade of the M06HF22 x-ray generator with a 100 micron electron gun has significantly improved the brilliance of our x-ray source for the IP detector. We have recently solved a structure using MIRAS from crystals that are no larger than 300 x 50 x 5? microns, collecting atomic resolution data sets for heavy atom derivatives and native crystal.

Why wait two weeks? Skip the queue! The waiting list for the DIP2030 detector, equipped with the new MSC Blue confocal optics is now averaging two weeks. The SMART2K CCD detector system, which still has the older Göbel optics, is available for larger crystals (> 0.2mm) which diffract reasonably well. So don't wait, hop on the CCD, the queue is much shorter.

Safety Rules! Safety is a very important concern. In this regard we have rules and procedures which are designed to minimize the danger from x-ray radiation. Please download and read the Radiation Safety Test form from our web-site and review our policies.

PMB: The latest version of PMB fixes a few minor bugs in pmb_sca2cns, pmb_cns2phs, and pmb_refine. The most current version is always the default on our Crystallography Laboratory's computers. The source is available from our website (PMB).

DIP2030: The in-house calibration software (RC.ScanIP, RC.CDcreate, and DIPcal) was updated in December, and new calibrations determined. Linearity of the system was tested (see below) and the system calibrated.

HKL2000 is now available for processing your data from home or your synchrotron visit.

MOSFLM, PHASER and CCP4-5.0.1 are now installed and operational on our Linux workstations.

Some editions of Acta Crystallographica are now available through the MML's Academic Search Premier service. Illiad is now providing the original Acta. Cryst. PDF files through interlibrary loan. Issues of all IUCr journals from 2000 are available from Blackwell-Synergy .


DIP2030: The in-house calibration software (RC.ScanIP, RC.CDcreate, and DIPcal) was updated in December, and new calibrations determined. The detector response linearity was tested across the range of both PMTs (high and low) and the system calibrated.

SCSB Crystallography Publications (See Full List)



Zhao Y, White MA, Muralidhara BK, Sun L, Halpert JR, Stout CD., Structure of microsomal cytochrome P450 2B4 complexed with the antifungal drug bifonazole: Insight into P450 conformational plasticity and membrane interaction. J Biol Chem. 2005 Dec 21; [Epub ahead of print]

Sutton RB, Vishnivetskiy SA, Robert J, Hanson SM, Raman D, Knox BE, Kono M, Navarro J, Gurevich VV., Crystal structure of cone arrestin at 2.3A: evolution of receptor specificity., J Mol Biol. 2005 Dec 16;354(5):1069-80.

Schultz DA, Friedman AM, White MA, Fox RO., The crystal structure of the cis-proline to glycine variant (P114G) of ribonuclease A, Protein Sci. (2005), Protein Sci. 2005 Nov; 14(11):2862-70; Sep 30; [Epub ahead of print]


Midoro-Horiuti T, Schein CH, Mathura V, Braun W, Czerwinski EW, Togawa A, Kondo Y, Oka T, Watanabe M, Goldblum RM., Structural basis for epitope sharing between group 1 allergens of cedar pollen., Mol Immunol. 2005 Jun 20; [Epub ahead of print]

Bi-Hung Peng, Mark A. White, Gerald A. Campbell, Jebamony J. Robert, J. Ching Lee, and Roger B. Sutton, Crystallization and preliminary x-ray diffraction of the ZO-binding domain of human occludin, Acta Cryst. F61, 2005, 369-371.

Czerwinski EW, Midoro-Horiuti T, White MA, Brooks EG, Goldblum RM., Crystal Structure of Jun a 1, the Major Cedar Pollen Allergen from Juniperus ashei, Reveals a Parallel beta-Helical Core, J. Biol Chem. 280(5):3740-6, 2005. (PDF)


E. W. Czerwinski, Butyltriphenylphosphonium bromide, Acta Cryst. (2005). E61, o2272-o2273 [doi:10.1107/S160053680501929X]


X-ray Crystallography Reading List

February: (Available from the MML ) (See more at Acta Cryst. D)

J. Appl. Cryst. (2006). 39, 57-63 [ doi:10.1107/S0021889805039270 ], New algorithm for protein model building: extending a partial model in a map segment, Y. Zhou, M. Yao and I. Tanaka

J. Appl. Cryst. (2006). 39, 109-111 [ doi:10.1107/S0021889805038987 ], TLSMD web server for the generation of multi-group TLS models, J. Painter and E. A. Merritt

Acta Cryst. (2006). F62, 39-43 [ doi:10.1107/S1744309105040303 ], Crystallization of a functionally intact Hsc70 chaperone, J. Jiang, E. M. Lafer and R. Sousa.

Success in crystallization of a functionally intact Hsp70 chaperone required genetic engineering to minimize polydispersity and modulate interdomain interactions, as well as high concentrations of the potent structure stabilizer TMAO. These approaches may be generally useful in crystallization of conformationally flexible proteins that exhibit interdomain motions. We identified an initial crystal `hit' with a commercial screen (Hampton Index HT; condition F2) that contained 0.2 M TMAO and found in subsequent optimization that the single most important factor in improving the crystal was to increase the TMAO concentration from 0.15 to 1.0 M. (This paper references work from the Bolen Lab at UTMB)

Acta Cryst. (2005). D61, 1643-1648 [ doi:10.1107/S0907444905033494 ], Three-dimensional model-free experimental error correction of protein crystal diffraction data with free-R test, Z.-Q. Fu

Acta Cryst. (2006). D62, 189-196 [ doi:10.1107/S0907444905038965 ], LAFIRE: software for automating the refinement process of protein-structure analysis, M. Yao, Y. Zhou and I. Tanaka


Crystallographic Meetings (IUCr) (ACA) (BCA)

Advances in Protein Crystallography: January 26-27, 2006, San Francisco, CA. (info)

Winter school on Soft X-rays in Macromolecular Crystallography: March 22-25th, 2006, Seefeld, Austria.

The British Crystallographic Association spring meeting: April 4-6, Lancaster, UK. (info)

The X6A workbench: Advanced Structural Biology Tools: April 4-7, Brookhaven, NY. (info)

RapiData 2005 (Tutorial Course: April 23-28, 2006, BNL, LI ,NY (info)

SCSB Structural Biology Symposium: May 19-20, 2006, Galveston, TX (info)

Como 8th Int. School on the Crystallography of Biological Macromolecules: May 21-25, 2006, Como, Italy (info)

Modern Drug Target Crystallography and Structure Based Drug Discovery: May 25-26, 2006, Molsoft LLC facility, San Diego, California (info)

EMBO Practical Course: "Structural Characterization of Macromolecular Complexes", Grenoble, May 15-20, 2006. (info)

SB of Large Macromolecular Assemblies: June 9-18, 2006, Erice, Italy. (info)

Gordon Conference on Crystallographic Techniques: July 16-21, 2006, Boston, MA (info)

ACA: July 22-27, 2006, Honolulu, Hawaii. (info)

ECM-23: European Crystallography Meeting: Aug. 6-11, 2006, Leuven, Belgium. (info)

5th International NCCR Symposium on New Trends in Structural Biolog: September 15-16, 2006, ETH Zurich, Switzerland. (info)

BIOCRYS 2006 Fundamentals of Modern Methods in Biocrystallography: October 6-13, 2006, Oeiras, Portugal. (info)

4th. INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON STRUCTURAL GENOMICS: October 19-26, 2006, Tokyo/Beijing. (info)



CAMD - PX1 : Beam Time

E-mail to request time available (gcpcc_access@xray.utmb.edu).

Beam time begins at noon of 1st day.

Radiation Safety - PX1 Ring Current Directions, Hotels (PX1 225.578.7137) Contacts: UTMB - CAMD




Let The SCSB Advance Your Research

The SCSB is here to facilitate your Structural Biology research.

Research Areas

Expertise

Meetings

    User Training

    Mentoring

    Collaborations




User Training

The SCSB staff is always ready and happy to train your students, post-docs and technicians in the correct use of the SCSB Instrumentation. They will also pick-up a few helpful hints along the way also. The support of the SCSB and the assistance by the staff member(s) should be acknowledged in any publications.

Mentoring

If you do not have the expertise to perform certain types of research the SCSB staff or faculty may be able to mentor your graduate student or post-doc as a collaborative project. Mentoring requires a significant commitment by both the mentor and student learning a new field of research. The Mentor should be co-author on any publications resulting from the student's research project. The support of the SCSB should be acknowledged in any publications.

Collaborations

Please contact any SCSB researcher (PI) or Laboratory Manager to discuss possible collaborate research projects. Of course such projects are at the discretion and time-restraints of the collaborator. The Collaborator should be an author on any publications resulting from the collaborative research project. The support of the SCSB should be acknowledged in any publications.




X-ray Group User Meetings

When: Last Wednesday of each month.

Where: BSB 2.240.

When: 11 am.

Why: To discuss all aspects of crystallography.

What: A small group meeting and informal presentation.

Who: Anyone interested in crystallography.

How: Contact Dr. Mark A. White white@xray.utmb.edu