Methods of structural biology of Instruct available to Czech researchers

J. Dohnálek

Institute of Biotechnology, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, v.v.i., Vídeňská 1083, 14220 Praha 4, Czech Republic

The membership of the Czech Republic in the European infrastructure for integrative structural biology Instruct brings previously unprecedented possibilities for Czech structural biologists as for access to the cutting edge technologies and expertise in the field. Instruct centres provide open access based on peer-reviewed application process to four major groups of methods and technologies: Sample preparation, Preliminary characterization, Structural analysis and Data analysis.

Sample preparation platforms enable more complicated or challenging projects with necessity e.g. of mammalian or baculovirus expression to be performed in an environment which enables wider screening of expression constructs and conditions. For research groups lacking characterization techniques several centres providing access to different characterization techniques, such as analytical ultracentrifugation, calorimetry, circular dichroism, surface plasmon resonance and other are available. These techniques can be directly used in connection with some protein expression platforms to ease the process of target molecules production in a desired state.

The major group of offered technologies covers all the currently available structure analysis techniques for biological molecules, including microscopy techniques, X-ray crystallography, solution and solid state NMR, mass spectroscopy techniques, electron paramagnetic resonance, and advanced mass spectrometry approaches.

A simple application is required to be submitted for each project. After evaluation and depending on its result access is granted to perform the required experiments at the requested centres of Instruct. Partial coverage of expenses on the side of the applicant is expected.

Detailed information about Instruct activities, calls for projects, the individual centres and their technologies can be found at http://www.structuralbiology.eu.

Grant support from the Czech Science Foundation (project no. P302/11/0855) and by BIOCEV CZ.1.05/1.1.00/02.0109 from the ERDF is acknowledged.