A school on the use of SAS to study biomacromolecular solutions
D.Franke1), M.Graewert1,2), D. I. Svergun1)
1) BIOSAXS GmbH, 2) European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Hamburg Unit, Germany
Small-angle X-ray and neutron scattering (SAS) is a powerful method for studying biological macromolecules and nanostructured systems. Given the limited information content in scattering data, robust data analysis and modeling methods are of major importance.
The School, aimed at students and early career scientists enthusiastic to learn biological SAS, covers the main concepts of SAS for solutions of macromolecular systems and provides an introduction to data processing and interpretation methods. Approaches are explained to analyze the data, compute overall parameters, and distribution functions, and reconstruct ab initio low-resolution models.
Methods utilizing available information from other structural and computational techniques, such as crystallography, NMR, cryo-EM, and AlphaFold predictions, in hybrid modeling procedures are presented. The use of SAS for characterizing flexible systems and oligomeric mixtures is described. Additionally, the importance of good sample characterization, data quality assessment, and adherence to best practices in SAS data reporting are emphasized.
The discussed methods are illustrated using ATSAS, a comprehensive suite for SAS data processing and analysis. New features available in the recent release 4.0 are highlighted, and a practical session on the use of ATSAS for data analysis and modeling is offered during the School. Participants are encouraged to bring their own notebook computers for software practice.