Aquisition of High-throughput Crystal Screening System

购置高通量晶体筛选系统

• 批准号: 6877441
• 负责人: RAYMOND C STEVENS
• 金额: $ 29.31万
• 依托单位: SCRIPPS RESEARCH INSTITUTE, THE
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-06-01 至 2007-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6877441
• 关键词: X ray crystallography; bioimaging /biomedical imaging; biomedical automation; genetics; high throughput technology; membrane proteins; robotics; structural biology; synchrotrons

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Synchrotron beam time has always been a needed and limited resource for macromolecular crystallographers, even with the advancements seen in higher brilliance facilities. Improvements in protein expression and crystallization have expanded the number and range of biologically interesting targets, the number of researchers capable of conducting this type of research, and the high value of the information obtained from such studies. Recently, with NIH and DOE support, the macromolecular crystallography beamlines in the United States are becoming more automated with the installation of robotic crystal sample changers that have impressive robustness and utility. With the improvement in beam line efficiency, in-house pre-screening of protein crystals becomes limiting leading to extensive screening of samples at the synchrotron beam lines (screening time estimated at 70% by several different laboratories), particularly for membrane proteins, protein-protein complexes, and structural genomics efforts. Because of limited synchrotron beam time and the improvements in the other aspects of protein crystallographic research, one (1) can no longer screen all of the crystalline samples available and therefore there is a critical need for robotics equipment on in-house x-ray sources, particularly for institutions with very large crystallographic communities. The opportunity to substantially improve the quantity and quality of the crystal screening process in the home laboratory will result in much more efficient usage of synchrotron beamtime as well as enabling new scientific knowledge gained from the subsequent structural studies. We are thus requesting funds to purchase an automated crystal sample changing and characterization system capable of automatically mounting, aligning, imaging (visual & diffraction) and dismounting batches of 288 cryogenically-cooled crystals on an in-house high brilliance (FR-D) x-ray source. The robotics system is identical to that at SSRL, using the 96 pin cassette system that can also handle pucks from the MSC/ALS robotics system. 15 NIH funded research laboratories at TSRI and the Burnham Institute (~180 researchers) plan to utilize the automated screening facility.

描述（由申请人提供）：即使在更高亮度的设施中看到了进步，同步加速器光束时间始终是大分子晶体学家所需且有限的资源。蛋白质表达和结晶的改进扩大了生物学上感兴趣的靶标的数量和范围、能够进行此类研究的研究人员的数量以及从此类研究中获得的信息的高价值。最近，在 NIH 和 DOE 的支持下，美国的大分子晶体学光束线变得更加自动化，安装了具有令人印象深刻的稳健性和实用性的机器人晶体进样器。随着光束线效率的提高，蛋白质晶体的内部预筛选变得有限，导致在同步加速器光束线处对样品进行广泛的筛选（几个不同实验室的筛选时间估计为 70%），特别是对于膜蛋白、蛋白质-蛋白质复合物和结构基因组学工作。由于同步加速器光束时间有限以及蛋白质晶体学研究其他方面的改进，一 (1) 无法再筛选所有可用的晶体样品，因此迫切需要内部 X 射线源的机器人设备，特别是对于拥有非常大的晶体群落的机构。有机会大幅提高家庭实验室晶体筛选过程的数量和质量，从而更有效地利用同步加速器射束时间，并从随后的结构研究中获得新的科学知识。 因此，我们请求资金购买自动化晶体样品更换和表征系统，该系统能够在内部高亮度 (FR-D) x 上自动安装、对准、成像（视觉和衍射）和拆卸 288 批低温冷却晶体。射线源。该机器人系统与 SSRL 的机器人系统相同，使用 96 针盒式系统，该系统也可以处理来自 MSC/ALS 机器人系统的冰球。 TSRI 和伯纳姆研究所 (Burnham Institute) 的 15 个 NIH 资助的研究实验室（约 180 名研究人员）计划利用自动筛查设施。