X-ray crystallography as a tool for mechanism-of-action studies and drug discovery

Knowledge of three-dimensional structures of biological macromolecules is essential for a complete understanding of many biological processes. X-ray crystallography is the most widely used technique in structural biology and can provide highly detailed structures of proteins, nucleic acids or macromolecular complexes without any size limit. In the past decade, several recent advances in biological crystallography and automation of data collection and structure solution allowed extraordinary progresses and now more than 93 000 crystal structures have been deposited into the Protein Data Bank. This wealth of structural data significantly helped the elucidation of many biological processes and led to the development of new drugs. In this review we will show how of X-ray crystallography can provide insights into the mechanism of action of biological processes and can contribute to the rationale development of ligands through structure-based drug design.