Category: Science Highlights

A beginner’s Guide to Radiation Damage

In the March 2009 Journal of Synchrotron Radiation special issue on radiation damage, in addition to authoring two papers, our illustrious James Holton’s ankle appears on the cover! The first paper deals with the practical aspects of controlling and understanding radiation damage and will be very interesting to crystallographers who would like to collect data more…
Read more

Structure of Ultra Stable Superoxide Dismutase from Thermophile has Implications for Understanding Lou Gehrig’s Disease

In a recent article in the Journal of Molecular Biology a paper has been published exploring the ability of prokaryotic thermophiles to supply stable human protein homologs for structural biology. The authors have made use of an unusual deep-sea hydrothermal-vent worm called Alvinella pompejana. This worm has been found in temperatures averaging as high as…
Read more

Structures of Mre11-DNA reveal key steps in DNA repair

An excellent paper came out today in the Oct 3rd issue of Cell detailing structural, biochemical, and genetic studies of the Mre11-DNA complex and its role in detecting and repairing double-strand breaks in DNA. Both the SAXS and crystallography data were collected at the SIBYLS beamline. There is also a nice writeup by Paul Preuss…
Read more

SAXS reveals how NEDD8 activates Cullin-RING Ligases

In the September 19, 2008 issue of Cell, we report striking conformational rearrangements in the crystal structure of NEDD8~Cul5ctd-Rbx1 and SAXS analysis of NEDD8~Cul1ctd-Rbx1 relative to their unmodified counterparts. These results point to conformational control of Cullin-RING ligase (CRL) activity, with ligation of NEDD8 shifting equilibria to disfavor inactive closed architectures, and favor dynamic, open forms that promote polyubiquitination. Cullin-RING ligases…
Read more

The Structures and Biochemical Activities of XPD Helicase Reveal Vital Insights into Cancer and Aging Diseases

The structure of Sulfolobus acidocaldarius XPD has recently been solved and the biochemical activites of various disease causing mutations measured. Results are reported in the May 30th issue of Cell. LBNL has also done a nice write up.

Yeast Topoisomerase II bound to DNA

As recently [reported](http://www-als.lbl.gov/als/science/sci_archive/160topoII.html) in the ALSNews: > “The veil has finally been lifted on an enzyme that is critical to the process of DNA transcription and replication and is a prime target of antibacterial and anticancer drugs. Researchers at Berkeley Lab and the University of California, Berkeley, have produced the first three-dimensional structural images of…
Read more

Publications in 2007

At least 18 publications were made possible by the SIBYLS beamline in 2007 and have been added to our [publications](http://bl1231.als.lbl.gov/publications/index.php) page. We are very pleased that the PX and SAXS endstations have been so useful to so many researchers doing such varied work. We hope that 2008 will be even more productive. If you know…
Read more

Structure of a Thermus thermophilus 70S ribosome functional complex at 3.7 Å resolution

In 2006 the Noller lab from the University of California, Santa Cruz solved the structure of the Thermus thermophilus 70S ribosome at 3.7Å resolution. This work was supported by data collected at both 12.3.1 and has been recently highlighted in the ALS news. The original publication was in CELL. Korostelev A, Trakhanov S, Laurberg M,…
Read more