Application of Synchrotron Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) to Biological Macromolecules

Biological macromolecules are the essential building blocks of cells and thus the central objects in the field of structural biology. Besides the high resolution structural techniques, i.e. crystallography and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) becomes an important complementary method to study macromolecules in physiological buffer conditions with a resolution of about 12-20 Angstrom. In this talk a brief introduction to the theoretical principle, the instrumentation and the data analysis/modeling software of SAXS is given. Its importance is illustrated with a few real-world examples of the applications to the structural studies of proteins and protein-nucleic acid complexes.