Rao Zihe
National Laboratory of Biological Macromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, People's Republic of China.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2007 Jun 29;362(1482):1035-42. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2007.2032.
China has a strong background in X-ray crystallography dating back to the 1920s. Protein crystallography research in China was first developed following the successful synthesis of insulin in China in 1966. The subsequent determination of the three-dimensional structure of porcine insulin made China one of the few countries which could determine macromolecular structures by X-ray diffraction methods in the late 1960s and early 1970s. After a slow period during the 1970s and 1980s, protein crystallography in China has reached a new climax with a number of outstanding accomplishments. Here, I review the history and progress of protein crystallography in China and detail some of the recent research highlights, including the crystal structures of two membrane proteins as well as the structural genomics initiative in China.
中国在X射线晶体学方面有着深厚的底蕴，可追溯到20世纪20年代。中国的蛋白质晶体学研究最初是在1966年中国成功合成胰岛素之后发展起来的。随后猪胰岛素三维结构的确定使中国成为20世纪60年代末70年代初少数几个能够通过X射线衍射方法确定大分子结构的国家之一。在20世纪70年代和80年代经历了一段缓慢发展期后，中国的蛋白质晶体学迎来了新的高潮，取得了许多杰出成就。在此，我回顾中国蛋白质晶体学的历史与进展，并详细介绍一些近期的研究亮点，包括两种膜蛋白的晶体结构以及中国的结构基因组学计划。
