Science Highlights & News

June 2013
Resolution of structural heterogeneity in dynamic crystallography
Zhong Ren, Peter W. Y. Chan, Keith Moffat, Emil F. Pai, William E. Royer, Jr., Vukica Srajer and Xiaojing Yang
Acta Cryst. D69 (2013)
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DOI: 10.1107/S0907444913003454

Dynamic behavior of proteins is critical to their function. X-ray crystallography, a powerful yet mostly static technique, faces inherent challenges in acquiring dynamic information despite decades of effort. Dynamic `structural changes' are often indirectly inferred from `structural differences' by comparing related static structures. In contrast, the direct observation of dynamic structural changes requires the initiation of a biochemical reaction or process in a crystal. Both the direct and the indirect approaches share a common challenge in analysis: how to interpret the structural heterogeneity intrinsic to all dynamic processes. This paper presents a real-space approach to this challenge, in which a suite of analytical methods and tools to identify and refine the mixed structural species present in multiple crystallographic data sets have been developed. These methods have been applied to representative scenarios in dynamic crystallography, and reveal structural information that is otherwise difficult to interpret or inaccessible using conventional methods.

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Facility News

May 2013
Time-resolved X-ray Science at BioCARS: Past, Present, and Future

2013 APS/CNM/EMC Users Meeting
Satellite Workshop (WK13), Thursday, May 9, 2013

The last major upgrade to the BioCARS 14ID beamline, completed in 2008, produced unprecedented time-resolved capabilities that have been exploited in many areas of X-ray science spanning biology, chemistry and physics. An APS-funded upgrade aims to further expand the capabilities of the 14ID beamline for the Physical Sciences. This workshop will bring together practitioners of time-resolved X-ray science to (1) discuss current capabilities and use of 14ID, and (2) discuss future challenges, needs and opportunities provided by the APS Upgrade to this diverse scientific community.

Organizers: Robert Henning (CARS, University of Chicago), Eric Dufresne (APS), Vukica Srajer (CARS, University of Chicago), and Philip Anfinrud (NIH)

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BioCARS is a national user facility for synchrotron-based static and dynamic studies of biological macromolecules, located at Sector 14 of the Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory. BioCARS is an integral part of the multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary Center for Advanced Radiation Sources (CARS) at the University of Chicago.

Bio feature

The mission of BioCARS is to develop state-of-the-art facilities and provide scientific and technical expertise and user support for studies of static and dynamic properties of macromolecules by X-ray scattering techniques such as static and time-resolved crystallography, SAXS/WAXS and fiber diffraction. The goal of research conducted at BioCARS is to understand basic biological processes in structural and dynamic terms, at the atomic resolution level. Scientific problems addressed by BioCARS users and staff are fundamental to basic science, highly relevant to significant biomedical problems and of great practical importance to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.

BioCARS operates two experimental stations, embedded in a Biosafety Level 3 (BSL-3) facility. This BSL-3 synchrotron-based capability is unique in the United States and permits safe studies of biohazardous materials, such as pathogenic human viruses.

BioCARS: a synchrotron resource for time-resolved X-ray science
Graber et al, J. Synchrotron Rad. 18, 658-670 (2011).

More about BioCARS: Facility and Scientific Mission › (PDF)

Time-resolved crystallography: past, present and future › (PDF)

 

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Note: BioCARS uses the APS scheduling system for scheduling user beamtime. To submit the trip information for your scheduled beamtime, please follow the links in your beamtime notification or ESAF reminder e-mails or login to the APS scheduling system.

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BioCARS is supported by the National Institutes of Health, National Institute of General Medical Sciences grant P41GM103543 (formerly National Center for Research Resources P41RR007707).