Synchrotron Beamline AccessBeamline ID 14-4
Figure 1. View of the highly automated ID14-4 experimental hutch.
The tunable ID14-4 beamline
The tunable high intensity ID14-4 macromolecular crystallography (MX) beamline at the ESRF has a long and proud association with the EMBL-Grenoble by continuously providing staff since it’s commissioning in 1998 to the present day. It is currently staffed by two members of the Synchrotron Crystallography Team (Andrew McCarthy and Sandor Brockhauser). Last year two long-term users of ID14-4, Venki Ramakrishnan and Ada Yonath, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with Thomas Steitz for their studies on the Ribosome. We would like to congratulate the 2009 Nobel prize winners and are proud of the small contribution ID14-4 made to this endeavour, where various Ribosome crystal data sets were collected over the years. We are also proud of another landmark that was recently reached, with the beamline achieving a millennium of PDB depositions, the first MX-beamline in Europe to do so.
With the advent of third generation synchrotrons it became apparent that radiation damage became a significant factor impeding MX experiments. As one of the first undulator based MX-beamlines in the world ID14-4 contributed to pioneering studies on radiation damage of biological materials. In addition ID14-4 has played and will continue to play an important role in the development of scientific instruments. This can be attributed to it’s close association with EMBL-Grenoble and the active collaboration between the ESRF structural biology group and the EMBL Synchrotron Crystallography and the Diffraction Instrumentation Teams. Particular instrumental highlights include the MD2 microdiffractometer, SC3 sample changer, microspectrophotometer and MK3 mini-kappa goinometer head. The beamline also contributes to the development of novel methods for macromolecular crystallography, such as de novo phase determination using radiation damage and X-ray tomographic reconstructions of macromolecular samples. The beamline is continuously being improved to enable the most challenging structural biology projects in Europe to be successfully carried out.
ID14-4 is run as a collaboration between the EMBL-Grenoble Synchrotron Crystallography Team and the ESRF Structural Biology Group. See the ID14-4 webpage for more information on the technical details and the ESRF website for application details.
Reference Publication
McCarthy, A. A., Brockhauser, S., Nurizzo, D., Theveneau, P. Mairs, T., Spruce, D. Guijarro, M., Lesourd, M., Ravelli, R. B. G., McSweeney, S. (2009) J. Synchrotron Rad. 16, 803-812
ID14-4 Research Highlights in 2009
Schneider, M. C., Prosser, B. E., Caesar, J. J. E., Kugelberg, E., Li, S., Zhang, Q., Quoraishi, S., Lovett, J. E., Deane, J. E., Sim, R. B., Roversi, P., Johnson, S., Tang, C. M., Lea, S. M. (2009) Nature 458, 890-893.
Dias, A., Bouvier, D., Crepin, T., McCarthy, A. A., Hart, D., Baudin, F., Cusack, S., Ruigrok, R. W. H. (2009) Nature 458, 914-918.
Rooijakkers, S. H., Wu, J., Ruyken, M., van Domselaar, R., Planken, K. L., Tzekou, A., Ricklin, D., Lambris, J. D., Janssen, B. J., van Strijp, J. A., Gros, P. (2009) Nat. Immunol. 10, 721-727.
Wu, J., Wu, Y. Q., Ricklin, D., Janssen, B. J., Lambris, J. D., Gros, P. (2009) Nat. Immunol. 10, 728-733.
Schmeing, T. M., Voorhees, R. M., Kelly, A. C., Gao Y-G., Murphy, F. V., Weir, J. R., Ramakrishnan, V. (2009) Science 326, 688-694.
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.
Neubauer, C., Yong-Gui, G., Andersen, K. R., Dunham, C. M., Hentschel, J., Gerdes, K., Ramaakrishnan, V., Brodersen, D. E. (2009) Cell 139, 1084-1095.
Chandran, V., Fronzes, R., Duquerroy, S., Cronin, N., Navaza, J., Waksman, G. (2009) Nature 462, 1011-1015.