Macromolecular crystallography at the Philipps University Marburg (MarBAG)

Located at the Philipps-University-Marburg and the Max-Planck-Institute for terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany, the MarBAG employs X-ray crystallography to reveal fundamental mechanisms of key biological processes involving synthesis, assembly and function of macromolecular machines and cellular structures (e.g. CO2-fixation pathways, flagellar biosynthesis, CRISPR-Cas Systems, cell-wall-related processes, phage-bacteria relationships). Furthermore, we are interested in plant-pathogen interactions and the function of nucleotide derived signalling molecules in cellular stress physiology and organization. A 200 keV cryo-electron microscope was recently installed at the UMR to complement our efforts to structurally characterize macromolecular complexes, which do not readily crystallize. Thus, we can now routinely screen and quality check samples for cryo-electron microscopy.MarBAG数据集坐落于德国马尔堡的菲利普斯-马尔堡大学（Philipps-University-Marburg）与马克斯·普朗克陆地微生物研究所（Max-Planck-Institute for terrestrial Microbiology），该数据集采用X射线晶体学（X-ray crystallography）技术，以阐明涉及大分子机器与细胞结构的合成、组装及功能的关键生物学过程的核心机制，研究范畴涵盖二氧化碳固定通路（CO2-fixation pathways）、鞭毛生物合成（flagellar biosynthesis）、CRISPR-Cas系统（CRISPR-Cas Systems）、细胞壁相关过程以及噬菌体-细菌互作关系等方向。此外，本团队还聚焦植物-病原体互作（plant-pathogen interactions），以及核苷酸衍生信号分子（nucleotide derived signalling molecules）在细胞应激生理与细胞组织结构调控中的功能。近期，该研究单元（UMR）已安装一台200 keV冷冻电子显微镜（cryo-electron microscope），用于补充对难以结晶的大分子复合物的结构表征工作，如今我们已可常规开展冷冻电镜样品的筛选与质量检测流程。