Crystal structures of human and mouse ketohexokinase provide a structural basis for species- and isoform-selective inhibitor design

Crystal structures of human and mouse ketohexokinase both in unliganded states and in complex with a species- and isoform-selective ligand reveal a previously unrecognized hotspot for inhibitor design.

X-ray structure of the metastable SEPT14–SEPT7 coiled coil reveals a hendecad region crucial for heterodimerization

The heterodimeric coiled coil formed between human septins 14 and 7 is parallel and has nonstandard repeats and unusual helix-to-helix packing; it is metastable, which allows the transition to antiparallel homodimeric states believed to be involved in septin filament cross-linking.

Structural basis for the allosteric pathway of 4-amino-4-deoxychorismate synthase

The crystal structure of 4-amino-4-deoxychorismate synthase (ADCS), which is composed of a PabA–PabB complex, was determined for the first time. This study provides structural insights into the allosteric pathway of ADCS.

Elucidating polymorphs of crystal structures by intensity-based hierarchical clustering analysis of multiple diffraction data sets

Single-step intensity-based hierarchical clustering is demonstrated to allow the detection of structural polymorphs in diffraction data sets obtained from multiple crystals. By splitting data sets collected using a continuous helical scheme into several chunks, both inter-crystal and intra-crystal polymorphs can successfully be analyzed.

Increasing the bulk of the 1TEL–target linker and retaining the 10×His tag in a 1TEL–CMG2-vWa construct improves crystal order and diffraction limits

Using a 1TEL–CMG2-vWa construct, evidence is provided to support limiting the flexibility of linkers between TELSAM and proteins of interest and considering retaining polyhistidine purification tags in TELSAM-fusion constructs. The phenomenon of TELSAM-polymer flipping is also identified and a correction strategy is developed.

A user-friendly plug-and-play cyclic olefin copolymer-based microfluidic chip for room-temperature, fixed-target serial crystallography

An improved design of an all-polymer microfluidic `chip' for fixed-target serial crystallography is presented that can easily be fabricated in-house, is inexpensive and is highly modifiable to meet broad user needs for room-temperature serial crystallography at both synchrotron and XFEL light sources.

Michael James (1940–2023)

Michael James is remembered.