A large-scale, high-efficiency and low-cost platform for structural genomics studies

A large-scale, cost-effective, semi-automated platform for structural genomics has been set up at Peking University and this platform is aiming at a cost of US $10 000 per structure determination.

Advanced beamline automation for biological crystallography experiments

Beamline automation has significantly improved the throughput and accuracy of X-ray data collection from biological molecules. Further improvements will make the systems even more robust and offer a route to optimized and remote data collection.

HKL-3000: the integration of data reduction and structure solution – from diffraction images to an initial model in minutes

An expert system for semi-automatic or automatic analysis of X-ray diffraction data has been developed and used for over 140 new structure determinations. The typical end result is an interpretable electron-density map with a partially built structure.

Estimation of anomalous signal in diffraction data

Various criteria used for estimation of the anomalous signal in diffraction data are discussed.

Membrane's Eleven: heavy-atom derivatives of membrane-protein crystals

A database is presented of heavy-atom derivatives that have been used in structure determination of membrane proteins. Compounds of organo-mercurials, Pt^II and trimethyl-lead are particularly successful.

SAD phasing by OASIS-2004: case studies of dual-space fragment extension

Iterative dual-space fragment extension with protein SAD data is performed by a combination of the programs OASIS-2004, DM, RESOLVE (build only) and ARP/wARP. The procedure is beneficial to high-throughput protein structure determination.

From phasing to structure refinement in-house: Cr/Cu dual-wavelength system and a loopless free crystal-mounting method

Examples of Cr SAD structure solutions using a Cr/Cu dual-wavelength system in combination with a loopless free crystal-mounting method are shown.

Recent advances in direct phasing methods for heavy-atom substructure determination

Recent development on statistical direct phasing methods for heavy-atom substructure determination has been outlined.

ACORN: a review

ACORN has been used to solve a number of protein structures and has been extended to work with data to resolution down to 1.7 Å.

Macromolecular envelope determination and envelope-based phasing

This paper describes the development of the FSEARCH program for locating envelopes in the unit cell and possible ways to extend phases to crystallographic data resolution.

Automated ligand fitting by core-fragment fitting and extension into density

An automated ligand-fitting procedure has been developed and tested on 9327 ligands and (F_o − F_c)exp(iφ_c) difference density from macromolecular structures in the Protein Data Bank.

Considerations for the refinement of low-resolution crystal structures

Methods and considerations for the structure solution and refinement of the ATPase p97/VCP at 4.7 to 3.5 Å resolution are described.

Structural basis for non-catalytic and catalytic activities of ribonuclease III

The crystal structures of bacterial ribonuclease III (RNase III) in complex with double-stranded (ds) RNA provide a structural basis for its non-catalytic and catalytic activities and insight into the mechanism of dsRNA processing by all members of the RNase III family.

On the complementarity of methods in structural biology

The analysis of the translation apparatus has made it eminently clear that the complementarity of structural methods is needed to get an understandable and reasonably clear picture.