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E-HTPX: E-SCIENCE RESOURCE FOR HIGH-THROUGHPUT PROTEIN CRYSTALLOGRAPHY
02 September 2005 - CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory
| DARTS is preparing to offer yet another service to science and industry, namely e-HTPX; an e-science resource for high-throughput protein crystallography. e-HTPX will provide an automated procedure for protein structure determination using X-ray crystallography in a high throughput mode. In addition, e-HTPX will provide access to instruments, databases and low-cost, high quality parallel computing. |
DARTS is preparing to offer yet another service to science and industry, namely e-HTPX; an e-science resource for high-throughput protein crystallography. e-HTPX will provide an automated procedure for protein structure determination using X-ray crystallography in a high throughput mode. In addition, e-HTPX will provide access to instruments, databases and low-cost, high quality parallel computing. As any user knows, there are several major time-consuming steps involved in a protein crystallography project: Selection of protein target
Protein production
Crystallisation of protein
Data collection
Phasing
Protein structure determination
Submission of model into protein databank
Structural analysis
e-HTPX aims to revolutionise this process by offering a single interface from which users can initiate, plan, direct and document their experiment either locally or remotely from a desktop computer. Immediate benefits of the service include: Reduction in travel costs - users no longer have to travel to a synchrotron to perform their experiments.
No special expertise required - users do not have to be protein crystallographers to access the service.
Single user interface - users can interface e-HTPX through web-based technology and define their requirements on-line (eg, completion of safety forms, specification of diffraction plan, shipping information etc).
Automatic tracking of experiments - using a series of barcodes, users can track the progress of their experiments from receipt of crystals to structure analysis.
Automatic recording of data - users no longer have to interrupt their experiments to record conditions and results. Automatic recording of data means that experiments may be accurately replicated time and time again.
Automatic phasing - as many as ten proteins can be checked at any one time during the phasing stage, almost impossible to achieve for the single user.
Continuous access - e-HTPX will operate 24 hours a day.
Security, confidentiality and reliability of data lie at the heart of the e-HTPX project. For further background and technical information please access the e-HTPX website DARTS will be looking to provide commercial use of e-HTPX during the middle part of 2006, and will be offering e-HTPX on a trial basis towards the end of 2005. Any user who wishes to take part in trials of the project, please contact the e-HTPX Industrial Liaison Coordinator
http://www.darts.ac.uk
About: CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory
DARTS is a unique service offering solutions to materials characterisation problems that are unattainable in the conventional laboratory. This is possible because it makes use of the Synchrotron Radiation Source (SRS). Advantages of using the SRS include: • The ability to study small or weakly diffracting samples. Improved resolution, enabling structures intractable in the home laboratory to be solved. • The ability to select the optimum wavelength for a particular application. • Additional specialised techniques only possible using synchrotron radiation can be exploited. The DARTS team's ability to access and combine a range of complementary techniques provides information to help manufacturers control processing conditions and modify manufacturing techniques to improve a wide range of products. Even the everyday crisp packet has benefited from DARTS leading edge technology. Applications can cover materials from agrochemicals, pigments, polypeptides, microporous materials, organometallics, catalyst materials, minerals and samples from processing plants.
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