Newsletter 132
October 9, 2006


The NIH X-Ray Diffraction Interest Group

Newsletter web site: http://mcl1.ncifcrf.gov/nihxray

The 2006 International Conference on Structural Genomics Oct. 22-26, 2006, Beijing, China

Advances in Protein Crystallography 24 - 25 January 2007, South San Francisco, CA, USA

9th International Conference on Biology and Synchrotron Radiation 13-17 August 2007, Manchester, England


Item 1: September 2006 Publications by Members:

1:  Gustchina E, Louis JM, Bewley CA, Clore GM. 
 Synergistic Inhibition of HIV-1 Envelope-Mediated Membrane Fusion by Inhibitors
Targeting the N and C-Terminal Heptad Repeats of gp41.
J Mol Biol. 2006 Sep 12; PMID: 17010381 
   
2:  Iwahara J, Zweckstetter M, Clore GM. 
 NMR structural and kinetic characterization of a homeodomain diffusing and
hopping on nonspecific DNA.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Sep 28; PMID: 17008406
   
3:  Tang C, Clore GM. 
 A simple and reliable approach to docking protein-protein complexes from very
sparse NOE-derived intermolecular distance restraints.
J Biomol NMR. 2006 Sep;36(1):37-44. Epub 2006 Sep 12. PMID: 16967193
   
4:  Cheong CG, Hall TM. 
 Engineering RNA sequence specificity of Pumilio repeats.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2006 Sep 12;103(37):13635-9. Epub 2006 Sep 5. 
PMID: 16954190

Item 2: Tips and Tricks - Crystallization

Editorial - The Silver Bullets: At the ACA 2006, Bob Cudney (Hampton Research) and Alexander McPherson (University of California Irvine) presented an alternative stretage for crystallizing macromolecules, as they put it, by searching the silver bullets. Examples of the silver bullets incude hexammine cobalt (III) chloride, 1,3-propanediol, sebacic acid, 4-aminobezonic acid, terephthalic acid, arginine, pentaglycine, glycerol 2-phosphate, trans-aconitic acid, trimesic acid, and putrescine. As you may realize, they are in fact additives. They tested 120 additives in the crystallization experiment of 81 proteins using two fundamental conditions: (1) 30% w/v PEG 3350, 0.1 M HEPES pH 7.0; and (2) 50% TacsimateTM pH 7.0. The succesful rate was very impressive: 65 out of 81 (85%) proteins crystallized. Most significant was that 35 of the 65 (54%) crystallized only in the presence of one or more reagent mixes, but not in control samples lacking any additives!

Click for Introduction and tips and tricks in Crystallization, Post-crystallization treatments for improving diffraction quality of protein crystals, Derivatization, Diffraction, Symmetry, Structure Solution, Structure Refinement, and Structure Analysis.

Item 3: Topic Discussion - Low Resolution Crystallography

Byron DeLaBarre & Axel Brunger: Considerations for the refinement of low-resolution crystal structures

Click for previous discussions on: PHASER, HKL2000, Parallel Protein Expression, Structural Genomics, NCS, Missing Atoms, Trends in Crystallography, and Absorption Correction.

 

Item 4: Dr. Zbigniew Dauter's Lectures at the NIH (03/29-31/2005)

Part 1: "How to read international tables?"

Part 2: "Data collection strategy" and "Twinning"

           "Phasing methods - a general introduction to all methods"

Part 3: "SAD phasing, Quick halide soaking, and Radiation damage 

           with possible use of it for phasing"
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