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June 2013
Resolution of structural heterogeneity in dynamic crystallography
Zhong Ren, Peter W. Y. Chan, Keith Moffat, Emil F. Pai, William E. Royer, Jr., Vukica Srajer and Xiaojing Yang
Acta Cryst. D69 (2013).
DOI: 10.1107/S0907444913003454
Dynamic behavior of proteins is critical to their function. X-ray crystallography, a powerful yet mostly static technique, faces inherent challenges in acquiring dynamic information despite decades of effort. Dynamic `structural changes' are often indirectly inferred from `structural differences' by comparing related static structures. In contrast, the direct observation of dynamic structural changes requires the initiation of a biochemical reaction or process in a crystal. Both the direct and the indirect approaches share a common challenge in analysis: how to interpret the structural heterogeneity intrinsic to all dynamic processes. This paper presents a real-space approach to this challenge, in which a suite of analytical methods and tools to identify and refine the mixed structural species present in multiple crystallographic data sets have been developed. These methods have been applied to representative scenarios in dynamic crystallography, and reveal structural information that is otherwise difficult to interpret or inaccessible using conventional methods.
Facility News
May 2013
Time-resolved X-ray Science at BioCARS: Past, Present, and Future
2013 APS/CNM/EMC Users Meeting
Satellite Workshop (WK13), Thursday, May 9, 2013
The last major upgrade to the BioCARS 14ID beamline, completed in 2008, produced unprecedented time-resolved capabilities that have been exploited in many areas of X-ray science spanning biology, chemistry and physics. An APS-funded upgrade aims to further expand the capabilities of the 14ID beamline for the Physical Sciences. This workshop will bring together practitioners of time-resolved X-ray science to (1) discuss current capabilities and use of 14ID, and (2) discuss future challenges, needs and opportunities provided by the APS Upgrade to this diverse scientific community.
Organizers: Robert Henning (CARS, University of Chicago), Eric Dufresne (APS), Vukica Srajer (CARS, University of Chicago), and Philip Anfinrud (NIH)
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