Protein Structure Determination

The Protein Structure Determination capability provides insights into the molecular structure of proteins, and how proteins form interactions with other molecules, for example, protein-protein, protein-DNA, protein-drug and protein-lipid complexes.

This capability uses X-ray crystallography and biophysical characterisation tools, such as circular dichroism spectroscopy, to visualise the structures.

Instrumentation

This capability is home to a range of instrumentation listed here

Aviv Biomedical Circular Dichroism Spectrometer - used to determine the secondary structure of proteins and peptides in aqueous solution.

Agilent Technologies SuperNova X-ray Diffractometer - provides an in-house X-ray source for measuring diffraction of protein crystals for the subsequent determination of the three-dimensional structure.

Australian Synchrotron – La Trobe has access to the Macromolecular & Micro Crystallography beamline which is an X-ray source used to rapidly create diffraction patterns of protein crystals for the subsequent determination of the three-dimensional structure.

Gryphon crystallisation robot and Memmert crystallisation incubators – used to grow protein crystals for subsequent structural analysis

Applications

There is a broad range of applications that this capability can assist you with including:

  • Three-dimensional structure determination of biological macromolecules at near atomic resolution
  • Understanding structure-function relationship of biological molecules
  • Atomic details of biological molecule-ligand interactions
  • Structure-based drug design

We provide advice on experimental design and methodology.

Access

Contact us to discuss your research applications:

  • Research Contracts for bespoke projects
  • Academic collaboration

Contact Us

For more information and to discuss your requirements please contact:

A/Prof. Begona Heras