N. Natasha Smith

NIST Building 227, Room A215
100 Bureau Drive
Gaithersburg , MD 20899-8312 USA
Phone: 301-975-4331
E-mail:natasha.smith@nist.gov

 

Education

  • Ph.D. Biotechnology, St. Petersburg Technological Institute, Russia , 1986
  • B.S. Biology, St. Petersburg University , Russia , 1982

 

 


The projects I am involved with include genetic engineering, expression, purification and crystallization of proteins. Site-directed mutagenesis, polymerase chain reaction, high pressure liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, and other techniques are used to produce and verify protein forms of interest. Proteins are purified using ion-exchange, hydrophobic interaction, gel-filtration and affinity chromatographies. Yields, purity and homogeneity are measured by spectrophotometric methods and polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. When proteins are 95-99% pure, conditions for protein crystallization are determined and the crystal forms with the best diffraction are cultivated for structure analysis. Current projects involve adenylyl cyclases from M. tuberculosis and Y. pestis, dehydroquinase from Archaeoglobus fulgidus, a plant-derived nitrilase enzyme and several other proteins.

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Publications

  • "Crystal structure of C73G putidaredoxin from Pseudomonas putida", N Smith, M Mayhew, H Kelly, H Robinson, A Heroux, MJ Holden, VL Vilker, and DT Gallagher, Acta Cryst. D60(5) 816-822 (2004).

  • "Crystallization and phasing of alanine dehydrogenase from Archaeoglobus fulgidus", N Smith, M Mayhew, H Robinson, A Heroux, D Charlton, MJ Holden, MP Mayhew, and DT Gallagher, Acta Cryst. D59, 2328-31 (2003).

  • "Structure of alanine dehydrogenase from Archaeoglobus: active site analysis and relation to bacterial cyclodeaminases and mammalian mu crystallin", DT Gallagher, HG Monbouquette, I Schroeder, H Robinson, MJ Holden, and NN Smith, J. Mol. Biol. 342, 119-130 (2004).