Biological Crystallography

Acta Cryst. (2012). D68, 1-12  [ doi:10.1107/S0907444911046282 ]

Automatic -helix identification in Patterson maps

R. Caliandro, D. Dibenedetto, G. L. Cascarano, A. Mazzone and G. Nico

Synopsis: A fully automatic and efficient procedure to find -helices in the Patterson map is described and extensively applied to test structures.

Online 9 December 2011

Acta Cryst. (2012). D68, 13-25  [ doi:10.1107/S0907444911047251 ]

Flexibility of the flap in the active site of BACE1 as revealed by crystal structures and molecular dynamics simulations

Y. Xu, M. Li, H. Greenblatt, W. Chen, A. Paz, O. Dym, Y. Peleg, T. Chen, X. Shen, J. He, H. Jiang, I. Silman and J. L. Sussman

Synopsis: Crystal structure determination, statistical analysis of all the available crystal structures and molecular dynamics simulations studies of BACE1 revealed that the multiple conformations assumed by the flap in its active site are influenced by the presence, position and orientation of a bound inhibitor as well as by the crystal packing.

PDB references: 3tpj, 3tpl, 3tpp and 3tpr

Online 9 December 2011

Acta Cryst. (2012). D68, 26-34  [ doi:10.1107/S0907444911048335 ]

The structure of the Bach2 POZ-domain dimer reveals an intersubunit disulfide bond

G. O. Rosbrook, M. A. Stead, S. B. Carr and S. C. Wright

Synopsis: The POZ-domain transcriptional repressor Bach2 is regulated by oxidative stress and is involved in some human malignancies. The reported crystal structure will be important for the design of cancer therapeutics.

PDB references: 3ohu and 3ohv

Online 9 December 2011

Acta Cryst. (2012). D68, 35-41  [ doi:10.1107/S0907444911048402 ]

Rapid visualization of hydrogen positions in protein neutron crystallographic structures

P. Munshi, S.-L. Chung, M. P. Blakeley, K. L. Weiss, D. A. A. Myles and F. Meilleur

Synopsis: The 1.75 Å resolution crystallographic structure of perdeuterated rubredoxin refined against neutron data collected in just 14 h revealed 269 D atoms without ambiguity.

PDB references: 3rz6, 3ss2, 3ryg and 3rzt

Online 9 December 2011

Acta Cryst. (2012). D68, 42-56  [ doi:10.1107/S0907444911049833 ]

Optimal fine -slicing for single-photon-counting pixel detectors

M. Mueller, M. Wang and C. Schulze-Briese

Synopsis: Fine -slicing substantially improves scaling statistics and anomalous signal for diffraction data collection with hybrid pixel detectors.

Online 9 December 2011

Acta Cryst. (2012). D68, 57-61  [ doi:10.1107/S0907444911049705 ]

A new pentameric structure of rotavirus NSP4 revealed by molecular replacement

A. R. Chacko, J. Jeyakanthan, G. Ueno, K. Sekar, C. D. Rao, E. J. Dodson, K. Suguna and R. J. Read

Synopsis: A systematic approach by the molecular-replacement method with a dimeric search model using the program Phaser led to an unexpected pentameric structure of the NSP4:95-146 region of the ST3 strain of rotavirus, in contrast to the previously reported tetramers.

PDB reference: 3miw

Online 9 December 2011

Acta Cryst. (2012). D68, 62-68  [ doi:10.1107/S0907444911049985 ]

Single-wavelength phasing strategy for quasi-racemic protein crystal diffraction data

M. R. Sawaya, B. L. Pentelute, S. B. H. Kent and T. O. Yeates

Synopsis: New phasing opportunities arise when crystals are grown from a racemic or quasi-racemic mixture of a protein molecule and its synthetic mirror image enantiomer. In this study, good phases are obtained from single wavelength (SAD) data by exploiting the nearly centrosymmetric nature of a quasi-racemic crystal.

Online 9 December 2011

Acta Cryst. (2012). D68, 69-81  [ doi:10.1107/S0907444911050360 ]

The use of trimethylamine N-oxide as a primary precipitating agent and related methylamine osmolytes as cryoprotective agents for macromolecular crystallography

H. Marshall, M. Venkat, N. S. Hti Lar Seng, J. Cahn and D. H. Juers

Synopsis: The stabilizing osmolyte trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) is shown to be an efficient primary precipitant for protein crystal growth. In addition to TMAO, two other methylamine osmolytes, sarcosine and betaine, are shown to be effective cryoprotective agents for protein crystal cooling.

PDB references: 3t28, 3t29, 3t25, 3t26, 3t27, 3t2a, 3t2h, 3t2i and 3t2j

Online 9 December 2011

Acta Cryst. (2012). D68, 82-92  [ doi:10.1107/S0907444911050682 ]

Structural features and kinetic characterization of alanine racemase from Staphylococcus aureus (Mu50)

E. R. Scaletti, S. R. Luckner and K. L. Krause

Synopsis: The tertiary structure and kinetic properties of alanine racemase from Staphylococcus aureus are described and compared to other related alanine racemase structures.

PDB reference: 4a3q

Online 9 December 2011

Acta Cryst. (2012). D68, 93-94  [ doi:10.1107/S0907444911051456 ]

Crystals, X-rays and Proteins: Comprehensive Protein Crystallography

Online 14 December 2011