A Medipix quantum area detector allows rotation electron diffraction data collection from submicrometre three-dimensional protein crystals.

When protein crystals are submicrometre-sized, X-ray radiation damage precludes conventional diffraction data collection. For crystals that are of the order of 100 nm in size, at best only single-shot diffraction patterns can be collected and rotation data collection has not been possible, irrespective of the diffraction technique used. Here, it is shown that at a very low electron dose (at most 0.

Imaging protein three-dimensional nanocrystals with cryo-EM.

Flash-cooled three-dimensional crystals of the small protein lysozyme with a thickness of the order of 100 nm were imaged by 300 kV cryo-EM on a Falcon direct electron detector. The images were taken close to focus and to the eye appeared devoid of contrast. Fourier transforms of the images revealed the reciprocal lattice up to 3 Å resolution in favourable cases and up to 4 Å resolution for about half the crystals.

Characterization of structure-antioxidant activity relationship of peptides in free radical systems using QSAR models: key sequence positions and their amino acid properties.

Antioxidative peptides have attracted increasing attention from researchers because of their antioxidant properties as natural materials in functional food and for applications in medicine. However, the relationship between structure and activity (SAR) remains unclear, especially in antioxidative peptides in free radical systems. Antioxidative peptides with different lengths were obtained from the literature, measured using different methods, and were organized into three databases, namely, Trolox-equivalent antioxidant capacity (TEAC), oxygen radical absorption capacity (ORAC), and superoxide radical (SOR).

Structure-activity relationship study of antioxidative peptides by QSAR modeling: the amino acid next to C-terminus affects the activity.

Screening, isolation and in vitro assays have been used for characterization of antioxidative peptides derived from food proteins, and incompatible deductions of structural characteristics derived from the isolated peptides have been brought forward. However, there is still little information concerning the structure-activity relationship of antioxidative peptides. QSAR modeling was performed, respectively, on synthetic tripeptides and tetrapeptides related to LLPHH.