Macromolecular Crystallography

The Service of Macromolecule Crystallography at the Margarita Salas Center for Biological Research (CIBMS) offer scientific and technical support in the crystallization of macromolecules to any research laboratory from the CIBMS, as well as any external users from other Public Research Organisms (OPIs) and private companies. The scientific and technical staff has the necessary training to perform the experiments, and for the interpretation of the the results.

X-Ray crystallography is a high-resolution technique that allows the study of macromolecule structures. This method gives as a detailed vision of the structure of macromolecules that allows us to get information about the function and possible interactions of these macromolecules with ligands and other macromolecules.

The service has the following equipment:

• Crystallization robot Cartesian dispensing system from Genomic Solutions. This equipment allows the use of small amounts protein solution, 100 a 500 nL per well, and the use of 48 and 96 wells plates.

• Robot Freedom Evo from Tecan. This equipment allows for the handling of solutions in order to prepare crystallization solutions to perform secondary screenings of crystallization conditions.

• Crystallization rooms. The service has access to one crystallization room at 22°C, and a second room at 4°C with visualization microscopes.

• Diffractometer. A rotatory anode FR 591 from Nonius equipped with a Mar 345 from Mar Research and a cooling system to collect data at 100 K.