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Moving towards a dynamic picture of enzymes

Research Highlights- - By Tien Nguyen, Department of Chemistry
Research Area:
Chemical Biology
Spectroscopy / Physical Chemistry

In a commentary for the “Holy Grails in Chemistry” special issue, which commemorates the 50th year of Accounts of Chemical Research, researchers in the Ando lab make the case that X-ray crystallography, which has enabled landmark achievements in biology over the last hundred years and relied on perfect, highly ordered crystals, should now embrace imperfection as the next “Holy Grail” of crystallography. Ando and colleagues propose that the weak background scattering that arises from imperfect crystals can provide access to a wealth of information to give a dynamic picture of enzymes.

Click here to read the full review article.

The X-ray image above is visualized as a topographical map that shows sharp diffraction peaks as well as weak, noisy signals, all of which form a comprehensive view of a compound’s structure. 
(Data visualization courtesy of Nozomi Ando, Department of Chemistry)