Laboratory and Instrumentation


A new Structural Biology Laboratory has been established at Elettra in 2010 to provide state-of-the-art facilities to the in-house structural biology community, as well as other Elettra scientists or external users interested in biological research and its applications. The laboratory is set up for high-throughput cloning, large-scale expression and purification of recombinant proteins, as well as the biophysical and biochemical characterisation of proteins and protein complexes. Although the final goal of most of the projects is the determination of the atomic structure using macromolecular crystallography, samples will also be used for other structural and biophysical studies using techniques available at Elettra, such as EXAFS, SAXS and AFM.

Molecular Biology and Biochemistry

The new laboratory is located in close proximity to the Elettra beamlines and occupies a large area (270 sqm), equipped with up-to-date instrumentations for molecular biology and biochemistry.
The laboratory is set-up for high-throughput cloning, large-scale expression and purification of recombinant proteins. A robotized liquid-handling workstation (Tecan Freedom Evo 150) has been designed to support both crystallization experiments and parallel cloning/expression of protein targets. A number of ligation-independent cloning systems are being used. The lab can support different expression hosts, such as prokaryotic E. coli systems or baculovirus-infected insect cells. Scale up of cultures can easily be done using either shaking flasks or bioreactors systems, as the laboratory is equipped with a number of Sartorius fermentors with capacities ranging from 1 to 10 litres of culture.

SB LAB

Crystallisation Facility

Thanks to the financial support of a grant from the Friuli Venezia Giulia region (DAGEAS project), a new automated crystallization facility is being implemented that works in close collaboration with the scientists of the XRD1 beamline and the IC-CNR Trieste Outstation. It currently includes a Tecan liquid handler (Freedom EVO 150) to set up crystallization screens and a Mosquito crystallization robot (TTP Lab Tech). We are currently installing the Explora Nova Xtal Focus Storage and Imaging system for the automatic visualization and recording of crystallization experiments.


This automated crystallization platform will soon be available for the scientific community.

TECAN Freedom EVO 150
Tecan EVO 150
Mosquito
Mosquito nano-dispenser
Explora Nova Xtal Focus
EXPLORANOVA Crystal Visualization system

Ultima modifica il Lunedì, 23 Gennaio 2023 19:04