121st General Meeting of the KCS

Type Poster Presentation
Area Polymer Chemistry
Room No. Event Hall
Time 4월 20일 (금요일) 11:00~12:30
Code POLY.P-34
Subject Small Angle X-ray Scattering Studies on Structures of Biological Macromolecules in Solution
Authors ByoungSeok Min
Beam Operation Team, Pohang Accelerator Laboratory, Korea
Abstract The fundamental aim of structural studies in molecular biology is to establish a relationship between the structure (or, more precisely, structural changes) and function of biological macromolecules. Over the past years, a tremendous amount of structural information has been obtained using macromolecular crystallography and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). These high-resolution methods apply only in rather specific conditions: it is often difficult to grow crystals of high molecular weight (MW) assemblies that are suitable for diffraction, and the application of NMR is fundamentally limited to small (MW < 30 kd) proteins. Investigation of structure of biological macromolecules in solution remains one of the most important fields of application of small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) technique. SAXS permits analysis of biological macromolecules and their complexes in nearly physiological environments and direct study of structural responses to changes in physical and chemical conditions. Recent remarkable progress in instrumentation, in particular thanks to high-flux dedicated X-ray synchrotron radiation has significantly improved the quality of the experimental SAXS data. This method is an important complementary tool to the high-resolution techniques (X-ray crystallography and NMR). The fundamental aim of this study is to obtain more detailed information on the structure and structural differences of a variety of biological macromolecules in solution under various conditions by using SAXS technique. Ultimately, the structural evidence presented here will contribute to a better understanding of relationship between structures of macromolecules and their function, from a biophysics point of view. In this talk, current status of 4C SAXS beamline, long-term plan for advanced beamline, SAXS data processing, overall parameters, and recent research results of biomacromolecules (DNA, protein) will be discussed in more detail.
E-mail moya122@postech.ac.kr