Structural Biology Core Center

The Structural Biology Core Center will provide state-of-the-art equipment (Mosquito robot for crystallization and Vitrobot for Cryo-EM, Microscopes and sample freezing tools, consumables and pucks) for researchers at UTHSC. Our instruments can be used for proteins (or biomacromolecules) and their complexes crystallization, optimization, cryofreezing the crystals and shipping to synchrotron facilities for X-ray diffraction data collection, and sample/grid preparation for Cryo-EM screening and imaging experiments. Once the sample is prepared it will be shipped to national facilities to conduct synchrotron (X-ray) data collection and Cryo-EM imaging experiments. The core center will frequently (or based on the requirement) submit experimental proposals to all the related national facilities and try hard to acquire adequate experimental beamtime for UTHSC researchers at no cost to PIs.

Faculty Director

faculty image

Seetharaman Jayaraman, PhD
Associate Professor

The primary goal of the core center is to train future structural biologists. The core center will train your group's graduate students/postdoctoral researchers/technicians in crystallization, sample/grid preparation (for cryoEM), data collecting, processing, and structural analysis. A comprehensive training program will be provided.

The core director will discuss the structural biology projects with principal investigators and add their projects to the general proposal. A bag proposal will be submitted to several national facilities for experimental time. The center will also provide specific external national core facility training as needed for UTHSC researchers, such as collecting data at the synchrotron facilities and so on.

The core facility will be equipped with UNIX servers will all packages and programs for Structure determination, model building, and refinement for both X-ray and cryoEM projects.

Services will also be provided for:

Troubleshooting and help in optimizing the crystallization process and cryo-EM sample/grid preparation.
This will improve the yield, reduce costs, resources wastage, and save time. Optimizing various relevant parameters of crystallization such as temperature, seeding and additives will also be provided.
The core center will provide expertise training to handle micron crystals or handle to obtain best data from such challenging crystals.
The core will also help the UTHSC researchers to solve structures from low resolutions and poor datasets, refine the structures and analyze the final models.
Discussion and direction will be provided for customized protein production.
The core will provide access and help to do SAXS- solution scattering experiments at NSLS-2.
The core will help with serial crystallography experiments to solve structures from micron crystals.

Service Request and Reservation

Please fill out the User form with details of the sample. Contact Core center for orientation and initial training to use the instruments. User training is mandatory.

Sample preparation for Synchrotron Data Collection

Beamtime will be obtained by the Core facility and users will get emails about upcoming beamtime availabilities. The users are expected to reply if they have samples.

Available facilities

X-ray Crystallography (Synchrotron facilities): BNL, APS, ALS, SLAC, CLS and SLS

Cryo-EM: Cal-Cryo at QB3-Berkeley, BNL, NYSBC

Number of pucks/crystals: Provide information about samples and description of the sample, size of crystals, cryos, native or complex and safety information particularly about hazards elements present in the sample. Similarly, the cryoEM grid details should be provided

Completed Data Sheet form: Fill out the attached spreadsheet and return with your samples.

Acknowledgment

This facility and the faculty director are supported in part by the benevolence of the Cancer Center and the Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine at UTHSC

We ask that researchers utilizing the facility for their structural biology needs to acknowledge its use as follows:

This research is based in part on data obtained at the UTHSC Structural Biology Core Facility, which is supported by the funds provided by the UTHSC center for cancer research and the department of pharmacology, college of Medicine.

Sustainability

The core is directed by Faculty Director Dr. Seetharaman Jayaraman (Raman), Associate Professor in the Department of Pharmacology, College of Medicine. For the core to be viable, sustainable and to provide its services across the campus for the foreseeable future, we request its users to include the Faculty Director as key personnel with support in their grant applications. Including core charges in grant applications is also recommended. The core intends to develop a heavily subsidized fee-based model soon, which will be evaluated individually. Dr. Raman’s CV, biosketch, and letter of support are available upon request. Including Dr. Raman as a co-PI in the grant proposal will greatly benefit individual projects, as he will provide his expertise, guidance and training in topics from sample preparation to structure solving. Individual projects will also receive significant savings on core-center fees.