Synchrotron Beamline AccessBeamline ID14-3 BioSAXS
Fig. 1 View of the current ID14-3 bioSAXS experimental hutch
Small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) is very complementary to Macromolecular Crystallography (MX) and has made a renaissance in recent years. All the SAXS beamlines at European synchrotrons are highly oversubscribed and this led to a decision by the EMBL Grenoble and the ESRF to convert ID14-3 from MX into a dedicated bioSAXS beamline in 2007. Adam Round of the Synchrotron Crystallography Team leads the EMBL Grenoble contribution to this joint effort. The complete conversion was finalized in November 2008, when the first officially scheduled users began their experiments. The beamline is currently equipped with a prototype liquid handling robot designed by the Diffraction Instrumentation Team as part of a trilateral agreement between the ESRF and both the Grenoble and Hamburg EMBL outstations. A definitive liquid transfer robot currently under development and will be installed later in 2009. A Pilatus 1M detector was recently installed, allowing for much more accurate SAXS measurements. ID14-3 has already been a huge success and had over 207 user visits in 2009.
Users can investigate a wide range of proteins under physiological conditions and undertake functional studies investigating the effects of differing temperatures (2-60 degrees C), pH (4-10), salt concentration and/or the addition of ligands in samples as small as 5 microliters (25-30 microliters recomended). The Bio-SAXS beamline is dedicated to measuring biological macromolecules in solution with the aim to provide a simple to use facility with rapid access using the MX rolling application procedure.
As part of the PSB SAS platform there is now a unified application procedure within the ILL application procedure to enable joint SAXS/SANS experiments to collect data at the ILL and the ESRF facilities in one visit to the EPN site.
ID14-3 is run as a collaboration between the EMBL Grenoble Synchrotron Crystallography Team and the ESRF Structural Biology Group. See the ID14-3 webpage for more information on the technical details and the ESRF website for application details.
ID14-3 Research highlights in 2009
Santiago, J., Dupeux, F., Round, A., Antoni, R., Park, S. Y., Jamin, M., Cutler, S. R., Rodriguez, P. L., Márquez, J. A. (2009) Nature 462, 665-668.
Clerici, M., Mourão, A., Gutsche, I., Gehring, N. H., Hentze, M. W., Kulozik, A., Kadlec, J., Sattler, M., Cusack, S. (2009) EMBO J. 2009 28, 2293-2306.