The status and vision for Structural Biology at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) is presented. The beamlines that have been described in the paper represent a Canadian national resource that is available to science and industry world-wide. They include state-of-the-art infrastructure and include specialized capabilities, many of which are not available elsewhere, including macromolecular crystallography, biological X-ray spectroscopy, soft X-ray spectromicroscopy, as well as small angle and wide angle X-ray scattering beamlines. The vision for Structural Biology at the Canadian Light Source is significantly enhanced by the synergies and collaborations between the users of the different beamlines and by the strengths of the scientific personnel and trainees.
We report on the influence of plasmon resonance in spherical gold nanoparticles on the optical properties of light-harvesting complex LH2 from the purple bacteria Rhodopseudomonas palustris. Systematic studies as a function of the excitation energy and the separation distance indicate that metal enhanced fluorescence shows strong dependence upon both of these parameters. We observe substantial increase of the fluorescence from LH2 complex in a hybrid nanostructure with 12 nm silica spacer. On the other hand, the enhancement measured with laser tuned into the plasmon resonance is almost threefold compared to the off-resonance configuration. The enhancement of fluorescence intensity originates in both cases from the increase of carotenoid absorption in the LH2 complex.
The brightness (or brilliance) of synchrotron radiation was exploited in infrared microspectrosocopy. Among application of this synchrotron-based microanalytical technique, biological and biomedical investigations, at the diffraction-limited spot size, are exhibit of an increasing interest among almost all the existing infrared beamline worldwide. This paper is presenting the main properties of such a source, coupled with an infrared microscope. Several important applications in biomedical field are reported: cancer cells studies and drug effects, human substantia nigra in Parkinson's disease, β-amyloids deposits in Alzheimer's disease.
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