Westenhoff Group

Illustration showing an extended roll of film against a background of plants. In each frame there is a crystal structure of a protein. In one of the frames, the protein is illuminated with light, which causes its conformation to change.

Time resolved structural biology of photoactive proteins

The aim of our research is to understand structural dynamics of biological photoactive systems. Time-resolved crystallography allows us to make molecular movies of photoactive systems transiting between their illuminated and non-illuminated states. This allows us to identify how the conformational changes in proteins occur and which molecules are participating in the dynamics. Combining the results from the other topics with SFX data allows us to increase our knowledge of how photoactive proteins work on a molecular level.

Group members

Research leader: Sebastian Westenhoff

Group members: Szabolcs Bódizs, Sadat Chowdhury, Anna-Lena Fischer, Candice Gautier, Lukas Grunewald, Taru Larkiala, Petra Mészáros, Leonardo Monrroy, Jennifer Mutisya, Kendra Njo, Sayan Prodhan, Yalin Zhou

Publications

Time-resolved serial crystallography to reveal protein structural changes

Mészáros, Petra; Westenhoff, Sebastian

Part of Trends in Biochemical Sciences (TIBS), p. 183-184, 2024
- DOI for Time-resolved serial crystallography to reveal protein structural changes
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Directed ultrafast conformational changes accompany electron transfer in a photolyase as resolved by serial crystallography

Cellini, Andrea; Shankar, Madan Kumar; Nimmrich, Amke; Hunt, Leigh Anna et al.

Part of Nature Chemistry, p. 624-632, 2024
- DOI for Directed ultrafast conformational changes accompany electron transfer in a photolyase as resolved by serial crystallography
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Microsecond time-resolved X-ray scattering by utilizing MHz repetition rate at second-generation XFELs

Konold, Patrick; Monrroy, Leonardo; Bellisario, Alfredo; de Matos Filipe, Diogo et al.

Part of Nature Methods, p. 1608-1611, 2024
- DOI for Microsecond time-resolved X-ray scattering by utilizing MHz repetition rate at second-generation XFELs
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Cryo-EM structures of a bathy phytochrome histidine kinase reveal a unique light-dependent activation mechanism

Bódizs, Szabolcs; Mészáros, Petra; Grunewald, Lukas; Takala, Heikki et al.

Part of Structure, p. 1952-1962000, 2024
- DOI for Cryo-EM structures of a bathy phytochrome histidine kinase reveal a unique light-dependent activation mechanism
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Ground-state heterogeneity and vibrational energy redistribution in bacterial phytochrome observed with femtosecond 2D IR spectroscopy

Chenchiliyan, Manoop; Kuebel, Joachim; Ooi, Saik Ann; Salvadori, Giacomo et al.

Part of Journal of Chemical Physics, 2023
- DOI for Ground-state heterogeneity and vibrational energy redistribution in bacterial phytochrome observed with femtosecond 2D IR spectroscopy
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3D-printed sheet jet for stable megahertz liquid sample delivery at X-ray free-electron lasers

Konold, Patrick E.; You, Tong; Bielecki, Johan; Valerio, Joana et al.

Part of IUCrJ, p. 662-670, 2023
- DOI for 3D-printed sheet jet for stable megahertz liquid sample delivery at X-ray free-electron lasers
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Structural basis of the radical pair state in photolyases and cryptochromes

Cellini, Andrea; Shankar, Madan Kumar; Wahlgren, Weixiao Yuan; Nimmrich, Amke et al.

Part of Chemical Communications, p. 4889-4892, 2022
- DOI for Structural basis of the radical pair state in photolyases and cryptochromes
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Structural mechanism of signal transduction in a phytochrome histidine kinase

Wahlgren, Weixiao Yuan; Claesson, Elin; Tuure, Iida; Trillo-Muyo, Sergio et al.

Part of Nature Communications, 2022
- DOI for Structural mechanism of signal transduction in a phytochrome histidine kinase
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Protein motions visualized by femtosecond time-resolved crystallography: The case of photosensory vs photosynthetic proteins

Westenhoff, Sebastian; Meszaros, Petra; Schmidt, Marius

Part of Current opinion in structural biology, 2022
- DOI for Protein motions visualized by femtosecond time-resolved crystallography: The case of photosensory vs photosynthetic proteins
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Refolding of the Deinococcus Radiodurans phytochrome photosensory module and backbone resonance assignment by solution NMR

Vrhovac, Lidija; Levkovets, Maria; Orekhov, Vladislav; Westenhoff, Sebastian
Insight into signaling mechanism of the Deinococcus Radiodurans phytochrome chromophore binding core: a solution NMR study

Vrhovac, Lidija; Orekhov, Vladislav; Westenhoff, Sebastian
Directed ultrafast conformational changes accompany electrontransfer in a photolyase as resolved by serial crystallography

Cellini, Andrea; Shankar, Madan Kumar; Nimmrich, Amke; Hunt, Leigh Anna et al.