Services

The facility has been established as a respond to an increased awareness of structural biology and need for experimental protein structure determination within the biomedical research. These activities are highly specialized and require dedicated personnel and equipment only available at Oslo University Hospital within the Helse Sør-Øst RHF. The facility and equipment is located at the Department for Medical Biochemistry (MBK) at the Oslo University Hospital, and includes the following experimental technologies:

• Protein expression. We can assist with advice and practical help with recombinant production of challenging proteins. Facilities for large-scale protein production in E. coli is availible.
• Protein purification. We have access to several ÄKTA FPLC and BioRad systems with a broad range of columns for large and small scale protein purification.
• Robot for high-throughput crystal screening and plate imaging/hotel. Our Mosquito crystallization robot incorporates small-volume, high-density drop plate configurations, which enables hundreds of crystallization experiments to be dispensed with a minimal sample amount. We have access to > 1000 different conditions for screening. Plates will be monitored in our crystal plate hotel. We also have pipetting robot for screen optimization.
• X-ray diffraction at ESRF synchrotron. We have regular access to one of the best X-ray sources in the world - the ESRF in Grenoble. We can prepare, bring and test crystals for customers. We can collect data sets for well diffraction samples, and assist with data processing, phasing, structure solution and modeling.
• Protein stability (nanoDSF). We can determine protein thermal stability, chemical stability, buffer stability, ligand binding and aggregation using low-volume scale differential scanning fluorimetry. The instrument can also be used to compare thermal and chemical stability of protein variants. 
• Microscale Thermophoresis (MST) We can provide service to qantitatively analyse protein-ligand interactions by MST. We have both a Monolith NT.LabelFree system and a NT.115 system for labelled proteins (red and blue dyes).
• Surface plasmon resonance (SPR) instrument. We have a Biacore S200 state-of-the art SPR instrument for measurment of binding kinetics of protein-protein and protein-ligand interactions. The instrument is able to screen small libraries automatically and the sensitivity is so high that one can determine binding of very small ligands.
• Isothermal Titration Calorimetry (iTC200) We can provide service to qantitatively analyse protein-ligand and protein-protein complexes by ITC. 
• MALS - Multi-angle static light scattering. A Malvern Viscotek SLS-SEC system is availible for determination of absolute molecular mass of proteins during size-exclusion chromatography separation.
• Dynamic light scattering. With our Zetasizer Nano DLS from Malvern, we can analyse the dispersity of protein solutions and monitor conditions to avoid protein aggregation/ denaturation.

The structural modeling and bioinformatics services focus on

• Sequence analysis. We can analyse protein sequences with respect to secondary structures, identify domains and domain borders, unstructured/disordered regions, motifs and signal peptides. Analyse conserved regions and identify potential active site residues. Suggest truncations for improved protein expression and stability.
• 3D modeling. We can build 3D models of protein and protein complexes by homology modeling, threading or fold recognition. Validate models and interpret experimental data with basis in models. Predict mutagenic effexts, including data from SNPs databases.
• Structure-activity analysis. We can analyse structures of proteins with respect to e.g. clinical data, SNPs analyses, mutagenesis data etc in order to rationalize structure-function relationships (SAR analysis).

Pricing

Level 1: Academic users affiliated to hospitals, universities or university colleges in HSØ region. 25% VAT may be added to the listed price for users outsideof OUS and UiO.

Level 2:  Other external users, including industry. 25% VAT will be added to the listed price.

Prices are in NOK. 

 (*) No fees are incurred for these services when the core facility staff member(s) involved in the work is/are co-author(s) of scientific publications, since these steps are normally carried out as a collaborative project. If academic users want to pay for such services without collaboration and co-autohorship, a fee of 500 kr/hour will be charged.