G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are eukaryotic integral membrane proteins that modulate biological function by initiating cellular signaling in response to chemically diverse agonists. Despite recent progress in the structural biology of GPCRs1, the molecular basis for agonist binding and allosteric modulation of these proteins is poorly understood. Structural knowledge of agonist-bound states is essential for deciphering the mechanism of receptor activation, and for structure-guided design and optimization of ligands. However, the crystallization of agonist-bound GPCRs has been hampered by modest affinities and rapid off-rates of available agonists. Using the inactive structure of the human β2 adrenergic receptor (β2AR) as a guide, we designed a β2AR agonist that can be covalently tethered to a specific site on the receptor through a disulfide bond. The covalent β2AR-agonist complex forms efficiently, and is capable of activating a heterotrimeric G protein. We crystallized a covalent agonist-bound β2AR-T4L fusion protein in lipid bilayers through the use of the lipidic mesophase method2, and determined its structure at 3.5 Å resolution. A comparison to the inactive structure and an antibody-stabilized active structure (companion paper3) shows how binding events at both the extracellular and intracellular surfaces are required to stabilize an active conformation of the receptor. The structures are in agreement with long-timescale (up to 30 μs) molecular dynamics simulations showing that an agonist-bound active conformation spontaneously relaxes to an inactive-like conformation in the absence of a G protein or stabilizing antibody.

MX1 is a bending-magnet crystallography beamline at the 3 GeV Australian Synchrotron. The beamline delivers hard X-rays in the energy range from 8 to 18 keV to a focal spot at the sample position of 120 mm FWHM. The beamline endstation and ancillary equipment facilitate local and remote access for both chemical and biological macromolecular crystallography. Here, the design of the beamline and endstation are discussed. The beamline has enjoyed a full user program for the last seven years and scientific highlights from the user program are also presented.

A microfocus macromolecular crystallography beamline at the Australian Synchrotron is presented.

Diacylglycerol kinase (DgkA) catalyzes the ATP-dependent phosphorylation of diacylglycerol to phosphatidic acid for use in shuttling water-soluble components to membrane derived oligosaccharide and lipopolysaccharide in the cell envelope of Gram-negative bacteria1. For half a century, this 121-residue kinase has served as a paradigm for investigating membrane protein enzymology1,3-7, folding8,9, assembly10-13, and stability1,14. Here, we present crystal structures for three functional forms of this unique and paradigmatic kinase, one of which is wild type (WT). These reveal a homo-trimeric enzyme with three transmembrane helices and an N-terminal amphiphilic helix per monomer. Bound lipid substrate and docked ATP identify the putative active site which is of the composite, shared site type. The crystal structures rationalize extensive biochemical and biophysical data on the enzyme. They are however at variance with a published solution NMR model2 in that domain swapping, a key feature of the solution form, is not observed in the crystal structures.