Frequently Asked Questions
The information below provides answers to questions about the CSBID. Should you need additional information, please contact us.
What is the timeline for structure determination?
Progression through the CSBID structure determination pipeline takes approximately one year.
What information should the collaborator provide during target submission?
The collaborator should prepare a summary of project scope and relevance, GenBank or Refseq accession numbers, a target justification code, description of target justification, details and rationale to support co-crystallization for ligand or functional studies and potential genomic DNA source.
For established protein targets, please also provide preliminary data and protocols if available. Helpful information includes construct design, expression conditions, purification protocols, crystallization conditions, inhibitor or ligand descriptions and binding parameters, as well as hypotheses to drive future structural analysis, such as putative catalytic residues, functional features and binding epitopes.
What happens once I submit my protein target to the CSBID pipeline?
The protein target first undergoes target selection and bioinformatic analysis to inform construct design, then target constructs are cloned into compatible expression vectors and screened progressively for expression, purification and solubility, crystallization and crystal diffraction. If high-resolution diffraction is obtained, diffraction datasets will be processed and phased for structural model building and refinement.
What updates should I expect while my target is progressing through the CSBID pipeline?
Community collaborators will received a webpage URL link to monitor target progress through the CSBID structure determination pipeline.
What does the CSBID expect from collaborators after structure determination?
In return for free structural determination services, the CSBID emphasizes that collaborators will actively pursue a publication featuring the CSBID-generated protein structure. Please reference the correct Protein Data Bank DOI number for the CSBID protein structure and include the following statement in the acknowledgement section: “This work was supported by NIH-NIAID Center for Structural Biology of Infectious Diseases contract award HHSN272201700060C.”
Please also communicate to CSBID if grants are awarded using protein structures and data generated by CSBID.
How is PDB deposition coordinated with community collaborators?
The CSBID will contact community collaborators during the structure refinement process to provide our model and Target Structure Determination Report for subsequent functional studies. Once the structure refinement process has been completed and a publication timeline has been coordinated, we will deposit in the PDB and assist the community collaborator in preparing a manuscript featuring the CSBID structural model.
What if we change directions and do not wish to pursue a publication with the protein structure?
The CSBID will identify an alternate community collaborator to pursue functional studies based on the structural model.
What information should I expect when my target structure determination is complete?
The CSBID will provide a final Target Structure Determination Report, including experimental methods, table for data collection and structure refinement statistics, structural analysis (responses to hypotheses from target submission, DALI structural analysis, etc.), as well as final PDB file and electron density map MTZ file for the refined structural model. The CSBID can also provide additional support and analysis to guide collaborators during functional studies and manuscript preparation.