High-throughput crystallization-to-structure pipeline at RIKEN SPring-8 Center

J Struct Funct Genomics. 2008 Dec;9(1-4):21-8. doi: 10.1007/s10969-008-9042-y. Epub 2008 Aug 2.

Abstract

A high-throughput crystallization-to-structure pipeline for structural genomics was recently developed at the Advanced Protein Crystallography Research Group of the RIKEN SPring-8 Center in Japan. The structure determination pipeline includes three newly developed technologies for automating X-ray protein crystallography: the automated crystallization and observation robot system "TERA", the SPring-8 Precise Automatic Cryosample Exchanger "SPACE" for automated data collection, and the Package of Expert Researcher's Operation Network "PERON" for automated crystallographic computation from phasing to model checking. During the 5 years following April, 2002, this pipeline was used by seven researchers to determine 138 independent crystal structures (resulting from 437 purified proteins, 234 cryoloop-mountable crystals, and 175 diffraction data sets). The protocols used in the high-throughput pipeline are described in this paper.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Crystallization / methods
  • Crystallography, X-Ray / methods
  • Electronic Data Processing
  • Japan
  • Models, Molecular
  • Protein Conformation
  • Proteins / chemistry*
  • Robotics / methods
  • Sequence Analysis, Protein
  • Software

Substances

  • Proteins