2020同步年報

S ince the determination of the first protein structure of myoglobin by X-ray crystallography in 1958, this technique remains a powerful tool for the study of struc- tures of important biological molecules. The brilliant X-rays provided by a synchrotron play a crucial role in the advance of modern X-ray crystallography. Synchrotron-based macromolecular crystallography (MX) further accelerates the speed of structure-function studies of physiologically significant biological molecules. The molecular mechanism of numerous biological macromolecules involved in various diseases has been revealed based on their crystal structures. The knowledge gained from those crystal structures also paves the way for future structure-based drug design. Oth- er synchrotron-based techniques such as transmission X-ray microscopy (TXM), X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy could also be used to tackle important biological questions from various perspectives. The following research highlights are collected from the publications of our wide user communities in 2020. These five reports include a triaminotriazine-acridine conjugate that selectively targets T:T mismatches in CTG trinucleotide DNA by Ming-Hon Hou, a sodium-dependent phosphate transporter, human solute carrier SLC20, by Yuh-Ju Sun, a CpG-specific human DNA methyltransferase 3B by Hanna S. Yuan, removal of lead (Pb) contamination by Cyanidiales by Yu-Ting Liu, and an isoform-specific Avanafil selective toward human phosphodiesterase 5A1 by Nei-Li Chan. (by Chia-Liang Lin) Life Science