The BioSAXS laboratory of the ITACA.SB Research Infrastructure

We describe a state-of-the-art X-ray scattering laboratory, within the Research Infrastructure ITACA.SB (Potentiating the Italian Capacity for Structural Biology Services in Instruct-ERIC), designed for multi-scale structural characterization of biological specimens and advanced materials with small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS) techniques: WAXS to probe atomic and molecular organization, and SAXS to characterize morphological and structural features at the nanoscale. The system enables (i) the concurrent acquisition of SAXS/WAXS data, (ii) the execution of scanning SAXS/WAXS microscopy, and (iii) the collection of ultra-small-angle X-ray scattering, batch BioSAXS and size-exclusion chromatography SAXS data. To demonstrate the system's versatility, we investigated the hierarchical complexity of both biological specimens and synthetic/natural fibers. We also report on analysis of well known proteins and micelles.