Protein Production and HT Crystallization

The Protein Production laboratory provides expertise for production of a wide range of macromolecular samples, including single proteins, antibodies, protein complexes, etc. A variety of expression systems are available, ranging from bacteria to insect and mammalian cells. The characterization of the samples, through biophysical and biochemical assays, provides the relevant quality controls as well as the useful information on the function and mechanism of action of the target protein or protein complex.

Knowledge of the 3D structure of proteins is fundamental to validate the mechanism of action of proteins and to guide the process of target-based drug discovery. Macromolecular crystallography is one of the main techniques for the determination of the atomic structures of proteins bound to drugs. The main bottleneck in crystal structure determination is to obtain well-diffracting crystals, that requires large amount of highly pure proteins, and is a time-consuming process. The availability of high throughput (HT) crystallization robots and automated visualization systems allows to minimize both time and sample handling, and support parallel project progression.

📍 The “Protein production and HT crystallization” station is located at Elettra Sincrotrone Trieste laboratories in Area Science Park.

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