Biosciences Area

Crystallization Screen Created by Berkeley Lab Biosciences Scientists Reaches the Market

Crystals obtained using the Berkeley Screen conditions and the resulting protein structureX-ray crystallography has been the most successful technique used to solve macromolecular structures, contributing several thousand new entries to the Protein Data Bank (PDB) every year. The protein crystal is the critical starting point for X-ray data collection, and consequently, its properties are correlated with the quality of the data and the level of detail that can be extracted for a macromolecular structure. However, proteins require solutions of specific composition to form crystals for structure determination studies. These specifications are usually determined from exposing the protein to several different solutions in a crystallization screen.

A team of researchers in the Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging (MBIB) Division led by Paul Adams and Jose Henrique Pereira have developed a new crystal screen, the Berkeley Screen, with 96 conditions proven to be highly effective at producing crystals for structural determination. The Berkeley Screen is now available to the wider crystallography community commercially.

ALS Shines New Light on Evolution of Photosynthesis

Found in muddy soils near hot springs, Heliobacterium modesticaldum is the simplest bacterium known to be able to drive photosynthesis. Its photosynthesis reaction centers are thought to resemble the earliest common ancestor of all photosynthesis complexes, which evolved around three billion years ago. Now, for the first time, a team led by researchers from Arizona State University has obtained a near-atomic resolution (2.2 Å) structure of the membrane protein at the heart of H. modesticaldum’s photosynthetic reaction center using X-ray crystallography data collected at ALS Beamline 8.2.1. The structure gives researchers a new perspective on the early evolution of photosynthesis. Read more in this ALS Science Brief.

Two Basic Mechanisms of Cardiovascular Drugs

Calcium channel blockers are widely prescribed for heart and blood-vessel diseases. With the help of the high-intensity x-ray beams and remotely controlled robots at the Advanced Light Source (ALS), two groups of scientists from University of Washington have revealed, at atomic resolution, how two different classes of calcium channel blocker drugs produce their therapeutic effects. The researchers took advantage of the remotely controllable robot automounter available in the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology at the ALS to screen a large number of crystals for the best diffraction. The tunable x-ray source also allowed them to collect anomalous diffraction data at Beamlines 8.2.1 and 8.2.2 with bromine-incorporated drugs, which was critical for locating the drug molecules in the crystal. The results pave the way for optimizing these classic compounds for safer and more reliable pharmaceutical applications. Read the ALS Science Highlight.

Scientists Find New Way to Manipulate Size of Virus-Like Particles

In their Nano Letters paper released August 23, 2016, a research team led by Danielle Tullman-Ercek, biologist faculty scientist in Molecular Biophysics and Integrated Bioimaging, described a new size selection method for virus-like particle assembly using chromatography. Their work has important implications for virus evolution theory, multi-protein assembly behavior, and protein-based nanomaterial development.

Lab-Developed Beamline Tool Launched by Licensee

Based on a beamstop technology licensed from Berkeley Lab earlier this year, MiTeGen LLC has launched the Sentinel™ Real-time Intensity Monitoring Beamstop System for X-ray beamlines. The device improves data collection from X-ray scattering experiments conducted by researchers seeking potential treatments for cancer, AIDS, Ebola, and other diseases.

The Compact Dynamic Beamstop technology developed by Diane Bryant and Simon Morton (pictured) at the Berkeley Center for Structural Biology and licensed by MiTeGen was named a finalist in the 2016 R&D 100 Awards earlier this month, along with six other Berkeley Lab technologies and one multi-lab collaborative effort. Recently, the developers and MiTeGen staff presented the device at the 2016 American Crystallographic Association meeting in Denver.

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