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News

9 Mar 2021

Emerging Topics in Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance - Liliana Quintanar (Cinvestav, Mexico) and Nikolaos Sgourakis (University of Pennsylvania)

The series Emerging topics in Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance will continue on March 11^th at 16:00 CEST with the following lecturers and topics:

Liliana Quintanar (Cinvestav, Mexico): Copper Ions and Protein Aggregation: From Amyloids in Diabetes to Non-Amyloids in Cataracts Disease
Nikolaos Sgourakis (University of Pennsylvania): Methyl resonance assignments, from methyl NOEs: Fact or Fiction?

8 Mar 2021

Upcoming session and workshop of the EOSC-Life Remote training series

As part of EOSC-Life Remote training series, on the 2^nd of July 2021, a one-day workshop on ‘Hosting hybrid events’ will be organized. Please, save the date! More details will follow soon.

In relation to this workshop, you can take part in the next session of the series, on the 12^th of March, 11-12 CET, to give the organizers input regarding your training needs and interests on the topic of organizing hybrid events.

1 Mar 2021

Emerging Topics in Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance - Birthe Kragelund (University of Copenhagen) and Ulrich Günther (University of Lübeck)

The series Emerging topics in Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance will continue on March 4^th at 16:00 CEST with the following lecturers and topics:

Birthe Kragelund (University of Copenhagen): Disordered complexes involving highly charged proteins
Ulrich Günther (University of Lübeck): New Insights in COVID-19 from NMR Metabolomics

25 Feb 2021

Instruct-ERIC CZ webinar recording

You can now play the recording of Instruct-ERIC webinar hosted by Czech Infrastructure for Integrative Structural Biology (CIISB) with presentations of Pavel Plevka, Jan Dohnálek, and Lukáš Trantírek.

22 Feb 2021

Upgrades at X-ray Diffraction and Bio-SAXS Core Facility

The universal, dual wavelength (Mo-Kα and Cu-Kα) diffractometer operated by X-ray Diffraction and Bio-SAXS Core Facility has been upgraded from the configuration Rigaku HighFlux HomeLab to the configuration Rigaku XtaLAB Synergy-DW™. The old X-ray detector Saturn 724+ based on CCD sensor Kodak KAF-4320E was replaced by a modern HPC (Hybrid Photon Counting) detector HyPix-6000HE and the old partial-chi axis goniometer AFC-11 by a fast high-precision 4-circle kappa goniometer. The effective performance of the diffractometer has increased approx 4 times, the new system is able to collect a complete diffraction datasets within a few (=1-3) hours, and the maximum resolution of diffraction data achievable before and after this upgrade has increased by about 0.3-0.5 Å.

22 Feb 2021

Emerging Topics in Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance - Lucio Frydman (Weizmann Institute) and Mike Williamson (University of Sheffield)

The series Emerging topics in Biomolecular Magnetic Resonance will continue on February 25^th at 16:00 CEST with the following lecturers and topics:

Lucio Frydman (Weizmann Institute): Putting annoying chemical exchanges to good use in the solution-state NMR of sugars, proteins and nucleic acids
Mike Williamson (University of Sheffield): Measuring the accuracy of NMR protein structures

Highlights of Coronavirus Structural Studies

5 May 2020

Structure, Function, and Antigenicity of the SARS-CoV-2 Spike Glycoprotein

The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 has resulted in >90,000 infections and >3,000 deaths. Coronavirus spike (S) glycoproteins promote entry into cells and are the main target of antibodies. We show that SARS-CoV-2 S uses ACE2 to enter cells and that the receptor-binding domains of SARS-CoV-2 S and SARS-CoV S bind with similar affinities to human ACE2, correlating with the efficient spread of SARS-CoV-2 among humans. We found that the SARS-CoV-2 S glycoprotein harbors a furin cleavage site at the boundary between the S₁/S₂ subunits, which is processed during biogenesis and sets this virus apart from SARS-CoV and SARS-related CoVs. In the study published in Cell, David Veesler with coworkers determined cryo-EM structures of the SARS-CoV-2 S ectodomain trimer, providing a blueprint for the design of vaccines and inhibitors of viral entry. Finally, they demonstrate that SARS-CoV S murine polyclonal antibodies potently inhibited SARS-CoV-2 S mediated entry into cells, indicating that cross-neutralizing antibodies targeting conserved S epitopes can be elicited upon vaccination.

Newsletters

Reader's Corner Archive

TIP

30 Jul 2019

Principles for Integrative Structural Biology Studies

Guru of integrative structural biology computation Andrej Sali and Michale P. Rout summarize in the recent Cell Primer Principles for Integrative Structural Biology Studies.

Visualization of biological macromolecules at near-atomic resolution: cryo-electron microscopy comes of age

The topical review by Alok K. Mitra recapitulates developments and transformational advances of cryo-EM technology.

16 Jul 2019

The expanding toolkit for structural biology: synchrotrons, X-ray lasers and cryo-EM

Samar Hasnain et. al. describe the steadily-expanding methodologies for atomic resolution studies in The expanding toolkit for structural biology: synchrotrons, X-ray lasers and cryo-EM. Of note is the following statistics: Despite the wealth of structures in the Protein Data Bank, a closer examination reveals that 89% of the structures, i.e. 126 994, are of proteins or complexes with a molecular weight of less than 160 kDa. Furthermore, only 4% of the deposited structures have a molecular weight in excess of 300 kDa.