Crystallography

Crystallography (from the Greek words crystallon = cold drop / frozen drop, with its meaning extending to all solids with some degree of transparency, and graphein = write) is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in solids. In older usage, it is the scientific study of crystals.

Biology

X-ray crystallography is the primary method for determining the molecular conformations of biological macromolecules, particularly protein and nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA. In fact, the double-helical structure of DNA was deduced from crystallographic data. The first crystal structure of a macromolecule was solved in 1958 (Kendrew, J.C. et al. (1958) A three-dimensional model of the myoglobin molecule obtained by X-ray analysis. Nature 181, 662-666.). The Protein Data Bank (PDB) at http://www.rcsb.org is a freely accessible repository for the structures of proteins and other biological macromolecules. RasMol can be used to visualize biological molecular structures.

Related Topics:
Macromolecule - Protein - Nucleic acid - DNA - RNA - RasMol

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Electron crystallography has been used to determine some protein structures, most notably membrane proteins and viral capsids.

Related Topics:
Electron crystallography - Membrane protein - Viral capsid

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~