diffraction

Researchers make gains in understanding antibiotic resistance

...he proteins is deduced by analyzing the pattern of diffraction of the x-rays. Steitz's group used ribosomal subunits from the primitive archaebacterium Haloarcula marismortui (Hma), which is found in the Dead Sea. They chose Hma ribosomes for their studies because they crystallize well enough to yield high-reso...

The making and breaking of microtubules

...hem down and crystallize single subunits for x-ray diffraction analysis. X?ray diffraction might allow higher resolution, but it would lose all information concerning contacts between the sub...

Scientists take aim at virulent bacteria by decoding machinery of key control enzyme

...ose their disease-causing potency. Using the X-ray diffraction facility at the Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago, Xiaodong Cheng, PhD, professor of biochemistry at Emory University School of Medicine and Georgia Research Alliance Eminent Scholar, and John Horton, PhD, Research Assistant Professor, have now ...

New law for resolution allows unprecedented sharpness in fluorescence microscopy

...oming the law postulated by Ernst Abbe in 1873 for diffraction limited resolution in light microscopes. Stefan He..., a physically consistent concept for breaking the diffraction limited resolution limit in fluorescence microscopy, and then verified it in experiments. Unlike in ...

Learning how SARS spikes its quarry

...ected through crystals of a protein. The resulting diffraction pattern is analyzed to deduce the atomic structure of the protein or protein complex under study. The x-ray structure revealed that the spike protein fragment showed a slightly concave surface that fits a complementary surface on the receptor, said...

Metal-containing compounds show promise as HIV weapon

...y were studying to the proteases, then brought the diffraction data to UT Southwestern to have the structures interpreted. The structures were determined by a process called X-ray crystallography, in which the crystals are bombarded with X-rays, and then the patterns made when the component atoms deflect the ray...

Zooming in on the protein-conducting channel

...y are diffracted. Researchers can then analyze the diffraction pattern to determine the atomic structure of the protein. The analysis by Frank and his colleagues revealed that each channel consists of two PCC subunits joined in a clamshell arrangement. The cryo-EM data also revealed two different arrangements o...

Molecular research suggest shift needed in how some drugs are created

...IRAK-4 that have been coaxed to form crystals. The diffraction data from the experiments allow the structure to be visualized down to angstrom-level resolution (one hundred-millionth of a centimeter). The structure of IRAK-4 was determined to a resolution of 1.7 angstroms. The molecules in question are part of ...

Key heart and Alzheimer's disease protein imaged for first time in native state

...nal structure of a molecule by analyzing the x-ray diffraction patterns of crystals that make up the molecule. "The next step is higher resolution, going from the current 10 angstroms to 3.5 or better," adds Weisgraber, who is also a professor of pathology at the University of California, San Francisco. Lip...

High-resolution light microscope reveals the fundamental mechanisms of nerve communication

...parate nanoscale structures was lacking due to the diffraction barrier. In recent years researchers in the department of NanoBiophotonics at the MPI for Biophysical Chemistryin Göttingen have been able to break the Abbe resolution limit of far-field optical microscopy, as applied to fluorescent imaging, using a...

Corals switch skeleton material as seawater changes

...r, Ries removed the coral skeletons and used X-ray diffraction to analyze their mineral composition. He was surprised to find that corals grown in the artificial seawater with a magnesium-to-calcium ratio less than 2-to-1 began producing a large portion of their skeleton with the calcite mineral, while those gro...

Biologists probe the machinery of cellular protein factories

... through the crystals, and analyzing the resulting diffraction pattern. Trakhanov prepared the crystals and Korostelev and Laurberg performed the crystallography and solved the structure, Noller said. ...

Bones at the nanoscale

...tress using the techniques of X-ray scattering and diffraction in real time. The high brilliance of the X-ray source enabled the tracking of bone deformation in real time. Researchers could look at two length scales: on one side they observed the 100 nanometers sized fibres, and on the other, the crystallite...

RNA enzyme structure offers a glimpse into the origins of life

...s through the crystals and analyzing the resulting diffraction patterns--Robertson and Scott were then able to determine the three-dimensional structure of the ribozyme. The ribozyme has three stems that radiate from a central hub. The active site where ligation occurs is located on one stem, and the structur...

Scientists identify molecular cause for one form of deafness

...nd posted on its Web site. High-resolution X-ray diffraction experiments, performed by Purdy at the Advanced Photon Source and at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, allowed the researchers to solve the structure of various espin-actin bundles. "As the ability of espin to cross-link F-actin is dec...