Lecture GK-5

Macromolecular structure determination by X-ray crystallography

To introduce some of the concepts in macromolecular X-ray crystallography.
To raise some of the issues that structural bioinformaticians should be aware of when working with structures determined by X-ray crystallography.

After this lecture you will:

be aware of X-ray crystallography as a technique for macromolecular structure determination;
know how electron density maps are represented;
understand how an electron density map can be skeletonized;
understand how an alpha-carbon trace can be constructed;
understand some concepts related to model quality of X-ray structures;
be aware of difficulties in interpreting X-ray structures.

Some of the lecture slides are available on-line (PDF).

There are many excellent eductional resources on X-ray crystallography, including:

Last Modified: 25 January 2012 by Graham Kemp