NAME: Judit Debreczeni

AFFILIATION: University of Oxford, UK

CONTACT: Judit.Debreczeni@sgc.ox.ac.uk

 

TITLE: "Twinning in MR"

ABSTRACT: Over two years of structure solution practice at the SGC Oxford suggests that occurrence of twinning is more frequent than it is represented by solved and refined structures in databases. One of the reasons could be that it is generally more appealing to aim for non-twinned crystals than to handle twinning appropriately. On the other hand, there is a certain lack of tools to resolve difficulties caused by this phenomenon, not to mention the general fear and rejection from the wider biological crystallographic community. Solving twinned structures, however, is very often the only way to answer certain biologically relevant questions or can be a direction leading to higher success rate.

 

This talk will give an overview about different classes of twins, including non-merohedral, pseudo-merohedral and merohedral twins. Specific challenges associated to structure solution and refinement of twins will be highlighted with emphasis on molecular replacement. Finally, strategies for possible data handling, structure solution and subsequent steps will be demonstrated on real-life examples.