Acquisition of a State of the Art Crystallographic Cluster

描述(申请人提供)：在最基本的层面上，复杂的生物系统出现在蛋白质、核酸、其他类型的大分子和小分子化合物的相互作用中。为了了解这些相互作用的细节，越来越多的健康相关研究人员正在转向X射线结晶学，这是一种通常适用于确定与大小无关的复杂生物大分子的原子分辨结构的技术。然后，这些结构被用来指导我们对相关生物学特性和功能的理解。为了继续为我们当地的科学家社区提供最先进的晶体仪器和资源，这项提议寻求资金来升级我们共享的晶体设备的部件。我们现有的最好的发电机和数据采集设备将重新配置新的仪器，以显著提高收集的衍射数据的质量和数量。随着我们进入结构蛋白质组学、化学生物学和相关的定量构效关系以及包括膜蛋白在内的更大蛋白质复合体的结构确定等新领域，这些增强的能力将很好地服务于我们的社区。 北卡罗来纳大学教堂山分校的生物分子X射线结晶学核心支持许多与健康有关的科学家的研究。这些研究人员对各种不同的生物过程感兴趣。例如，一些研究人员对单个蛋白质的内在折叠和伴侣介导的折叠和稳定性感兴趣。其他研究人员研究了大型动态复合体的形成，这些复合体促进和调节细胞感知外部环境并做出适当反应的能力。大分子X射线结晶学的一个基本用途是，通过了解单个大分子以及大型蛋白质复合体的结构，我们将能够更好地理解和处理由这些基本成分产生的复杂生物系统。通过这种方式，大分子X射线结晶学指导我们对人类生物学的详细了解，并为新的药物治疗提供必要的途径

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): At a most fundamental level, complex biological systems emerge from the interplay of proteins, nucleic acids, other types of macromolecules and small molecule compounds. To understand the details of these interactions, an increasing number of health-related researchers are turning to X-ray crystallography, a technique that is generally applicable for determining the atomic-resolution structures of complex biological macromolecules independent of size. These structures are then used to guide our understanding of related biological properties and functions. In order to continue to provide state-of-the-art crystallographic instrumentation and resources to our local community of scientists, this proposal seeks funding to upgrade components of our shared crystallographic facilities. The best of our existing generators and data collection devices will be reconfigured with new instrumentation to increase dramatically both the quality as well as the quantity of collected diffraction data. These enhanced capacities will serve our community well as we advance into new areas of structural proteomics, chemical biology and associated quantitative structure-activity relationships, and the structure determination of ever larger protein complexes including membrane proteins. The Biomolecular X-ray Crystallography Core at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill supports the studies of numerous health-related scientists. These researchers are interested in various diverse biological processes. For example, some researchers are interested in the intrinsic and chaperone-mediated folding and stability of individual proteins. Other researchers study the formation of large and dynamic complexes that facilitate and regulate the capacity of cells to sense their external environment and respond appropriately. A fundamental tenant of macromolecular X-ray crystallography is that by understanding the structures of individual macromolecules as well as large protein complexes, we will be better able to understand and treat the complex biological systems that emerge from these fundamental components. In this way, macromolecular X-ray crystallography guides our detailed understanding of human biology and provides essential avenues for new drug treatments