Researcher in focus: Olga Chukhutsina

Olga Chukhutsina is Assistant Professor at the Department of Physics at VU Amsterdam from November 2021. She leads her research line “‘Photoregulation in aquatic photosynthesis'” in the Biophysics of Photosynthesis group. Her goal is to study how different aquatic microorganisms respond to changes in light, from the organism to individual proteins. Olga studied Applied Physics in Minsk, Belarus, where she graduated with an MSc in 2010. In the same year, she moved to the Netherlands to pursue her PhD at Wageningen University with Herbert van Amerongen in the Biophysics Laboratory. She successfully defended her thesis ‘Light harvesting, light adaptation and photoprotection in aquatic photosynthesis studies by time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy’ in 2015. Since her PhD, Olga has been interested in aquatic photosynthesis. The focus of her PhD was not on crystallography, but on advanced time-resolved spectroscopy to study photosynthesis and photoregulation of aquatic organisms at the whole organism level.

Orange Carotenoid Protein – unique photoreceptor that regulates photosynthesis

In 2015, Olga continued as a postdoctoral researcher at VU Amsterdam to advance the knowledge of photosynthesis and spectroscopy. She established advanced spectroscopic methods to study photosynthesis in whole plant leaves (Bag et al., 2020; Chukhutsina et al., 2019; Chukhutsina et al., 2020). Plant leaves are the most challenging spectroscopic samples due to their complicated morphology, high pigment concentration and high scattering. Spectroscopic measurements on single cells are much easier!

At the same time, Olga continued to contribute with her knowledge on photoregulation in aquatic photosynthesis (V. U. U. Chukhutsina et al., 2017; Van Den Berg et al., 2019). In early 2018, she moved to Imperial College (UK) to join the group in Jasper van Thor’s lab, first as an independent EMBO fellow and later as a Marie Curie fellow. This was her first project in crystallography.  She began to study a fascinating protein involved in the photoregulation of aquatic photosynthesis, called the orange carotenoid protein (OCP). Her stay at Imperial College led to the first light-induced OCP structure (Chukhutsina et al., 2022). OCP is a very difficult protein to study because it has an extremely low photoconversion rate, so it is difficult to get measurable amounts of the photoconverted protein.

Currently Olga focusses her research on the photocycle of the OCP and its potential applications in environmental engineering. By gaining control over the photocycle of OCP, she believes it is possible to regulate the aquatic biomass of microorganisms. This could have significant implications for ecological management, particularly in marine environments. Primarily her work centers on photosynthesis and photoregulation in cyanobacteria and brown algae, which are key contributors to aquatic biomass. These organisms thrive in extreme conditions, and Olga is investigating their behavior in vivo through advanced spectroscopic methods. Her goal is to understand how they manage light and stress, which in turn influences their growth and survival. Another exciting area of Olga’s research centers on special algae known as dinoflagellates, which live in symbiosis with corals. These algae play a crucial role in coral health, as corals rely on the high-energy metabolites, like sugars, produced by dinoflagellates. When these algae are exposed to stressors such as high temperatures, excessive light, or increased acidity, coral bleaching can occur, which poses a major threat to coral reefs and the biodiversity they support. As coral reefs account for 25% of oceanic biodiversity, understanding the relationship between algae and corals is critical to conservation efforts.

To delve deeper into the mechanics of OCP and its role in photoregulation, Olga combines advanced spectroscopy with structural biology. She frequently utilizes cutting-edge serial crystallography techniques at world-renowned facilities such as the Diamond Light Source, LCLS, MAX IV, and SwissFEL. These methods enable her to explore the structural dynamics of OCP in great detail, with the hope of uncovering mechanisms that could be leveraged to optimize photosynthesis. A unique aspect of Olga’s research is her synergetic approach, which always connects structural changes observed in the lab back to the larger biological context. She grows and studies photosynthetic organisms in her lab while also examining the behavior of isolated protein crystals, providing a comprehensive view of how these processes function in nature.

Looking ahead, Olga plans to continue using these advanced crystallographic approaches to study other key photosynthetic regulators that are activated by light or pH changes. Her ultimate aim is to understand how these proteins control photoregulation on a molecular level.

In 2023 Olga got Unesco Loreal Women in Science Prize and was a NIAS (Netherlands Institute for Advanced Science) fellow 2023-2024. Olga will organize a workshop in June 2025 on the ‘Effect of Temperature on Photosynthesis’ – NVK will report on this and let you know.

Currently there is a postdoc opening in her group, get in touch via v.u.chukhutsina@vu.nl

 

References:

Bag, P., Chukhutsina, V., Zhang, Z., Paul, S., Ivanov, A. G., Shutova, T., … Jansson, S. (2020). Direct energy transfer from photosystem II to photosystem I confers winter sustainability in Scots Pine. Nature Communications, 11(1), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20137-9

Chukhutsina, V. U. U., Fristedt, R., Morosinotto, T., & Croce, R. (2017). Photoprotection strategies of the alga Nannochloropsis gaditana. Biochim Biophys Acta, 1858(7), 544–552. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbabio.2017.05.003

Chukhutsina, V. U. V. U., Holzwarth, A. R. A. R., & Croce, R. (2019). Time-resolved fluorescence measurements on leaves: principles and recent developments. Photosynthesis Research, 140(3), 355–369. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11120-018-0607-8

Chukhutsina, V U, Baxter, J. M., Fadini, A., Morgan, R. M., Pope, M. A., Maghlaoui, K., … van Thor, J. J. (2022). Light activation of Orange Carotenoid Protein reveals bicycle-pedal single-bond isomerization. Nat Commun, 13, 6420. Retrieved from http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2022/09/05/2022.01.17.475858.abstract

Chukhutsina, Volha U., Liu, X., Xu, P., & Croce, R. (2020). Light-harvesting complex II is an antenna of photosystem I in dark-adapted plants. Nature Plants, 6(7), 860–868. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-020-0693-4

Van Den Berg, T. E., Chukhutsina, V. U., Van Amerongen, H., Croce, R., & Van Oort, B. (2019). Light acclimation of the colonial green alga botryococcus braunii strain showa. Plant Physiology, 179(3). https://doi.org/10.1104/pp.18.01499

Written by Sven Hennig

Save the dates for upcoming NVK events!

We hope you had a good summer season and wanted to briefly announce a few upcoming events for the second half of the year.

NVK Crystallography Course in Utrecht at 15.-17.01.2025

The NVK organizes a crystallography & structure determination course in January in Utrecht under the guidance of Loes Kroon. The course is suitable for newcomers in the field, they can choose between powder and single crystal diffraction. As soon as a program is available we will announce it on social media and our website. Please save the date for this, if you are interested in sending some of your PhD students, Postdocs or research assistances.

Algemene Leden vergadering (ALV) 2024 on the 25.11.2024 in an online fashion

We will inform you via email and website about the detailed program. With the final invitation we will circulate the minutes, program and the financial report. Also you will find a zoom link for the meeting. If you want to test your camera, microphone and connection in a dry run, I will provide a test link on Friday 22.11.2024, 11:00-11:30. You can log in, check & leave, there will be no content in this session.

Please feel free to save the date for those two events and we are looking forward to seeing you there.

Registrations for our spring symposium are open!

We are pleased to join forces with the Dutch Association for Crystal Growth (DACG) for the Spring Symposium. The event will be hosted by Maastricht University on May 30 & 31, 2024, and registrations are open till May 15, 2024.

This event aims to provide ample opportunity for fruitful discussion and dialogues between experts from different fields of crystallization and to incite collaborations at the international level between the different disciplines on the area of nucleation, crystallization, crystal growth and self-assembly.

An early career event will be hosted on May 30, focusing on MSc, PhD students and postdocs future career opportunities. All participants to the early career gathering are kindly invited to bring a poster about their research. Please send your abstract latest on May 15th, 2024 at info@dacg.nl. We will have two poster sessions dedicated to networking and brainstorming. Please indicate in your registration if you will be taking up this opportunity. The posters will remain in display throughout May 31st.

The DACG & NVK Spring Symposium will take place on May 31 featuring invited talks by renown researchers from the Netherlands and neighboring countries, contributed talks.

We hope to welcome you, please register here.

Sven Hennig and colleagues published on covalent bicyclization of quaternary protein complexes

Congratulations to our member Sven Hennig and his colleagues Tom Grossmann (Biomimetic Chemistry) from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and Saskia Neubacher (incircular) for the publications on the covalent bicyclization of quaternary protein complexes in Chem. Great work in which they show not only the successful crosslinking and stabilization of the Pseudomonas fluorescens esterase (Pfe) trimer via the INCYPRO technology, but also solved its crystal structure (PDB ID 8pi1).

Save the date! – Joint meeting NVK and DACG

A joint symposium of NVK together with DACG (Dutch Association for Crystal Growth) will be organized at the Science Campus of Maastricht University on 31 May 2024. On the afternoon before, 30 May,  we will organize a satellite meeting for young researchers with an interesting evening program and overnight stay.  Details following soon.

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year!

We wish you a very pleasant and peaceful Christmas and a Happy New Year. We hope for an interactive, inspiring and fruitful 2024!

We hope to see you at our spring-symposium, stay tuned for updates!

NVK symposium was a great success!

On 24.11.2023 we held our annual general meeting of the NVK (ALV) at the Amsterdam Science Park organized by Roland Bliem and the ARCNL institute. Apart from the official ALV, the day was full of scientific talks and exchange, as we embedded it into our autumn symposium, this year on the topic of ‘Crystallography in Materials’. We had an exciting panel of speakers especially Ruud den Adel (Unilever), Tom de Vries (Nijmegen), Mirijam Zobel (Aachen), Alexey Pustovarenko (Malvern Panalytical), Adrian Graham (ESA/ESTEC) and Jarek Mazurek (Ardena).

A sphere impression of the day!

Special thanks belong to our speakers of the young researcher session (Grisha Shipunov (UvA), Falk Pabst (UvA) and Charlotte Vrolijk (Maastricht)), which was a great success and gave our next generation researcher a platform to discuss their achievements.

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Find the full program here. If you got curious, please join our next Symposium in Spring 2024! Details will follow.  

 

 

 

We invite you for our symposium ‘Crystallography in Materials’

It’s time again for the yearly NVK symposium and Algemene Leden Vergadering (ALV)! We cordially invite you to our autumn symposium focusing on ‘Crystallography in Materials’ at the Matrix ONE building in Amsterdam. Find more information and register here. Feel free to spread the word, and take your colleagues, students and fellow researcher along.

Loes reports on the IUCr Congress and General Assembly in Melbourne

By: Loes Kroon-Batenburg

The triannual IUCr congress was held this time 22-29 August, 2023 in Australia, a long-distance travel for most crystallographers. The number of attendees was a bit lower than usual (~1800) but still respectable. This year the 75th Anniversary of the IUCr is celebrated. A very well attended session was devoted to short talks by several Executive committee members and IUCr officers giving their memories on the rich history of the IUCr.  

13th Ewald Prize Lecture went to Wayne A. Hendrickson who delivered his lecture “Facing the Phase problem”. In his work he contributed to solving the phase problem for protein crystal structures with MAD and SAD techniques. He also mentioned the importance of the work of Prof. Bijvoet on anomalous scattering, our founding father of crystallography in the Netherlands. There were three plenary lectures, 29 key notes lectures and 8 parallel micro symposia, twice per day. In addition, there were poster sessions and the Software Fayre (organized by Martin Lutz) was running each day. One of the keynote lectures was given by our member Elias Vlieg (RU Nijmegen) on “X-ray crystallography of solid-liquid interfaces”. He showed very interesting phenomena are going on at crystal surfaces that can be well studied with X-ray crystallography. Elias is president of the DAGG, the Dutch Association of Crystal Growth, and I am happy to let you know that next year we will have a joint NVK-DAGG meeting!

The delegates were no longer provided with program and abstracts on paper; they were accessible through a congress app. Although quite handy to not be dragging around a heavy bag, it was very hard to really get a good overview of what was going on each day. The conference center was huge.  When I arrived the first day and entered the front door, it turned out I had to walk another 1 km inside the building to arrive at the reception desk.  It was very pleasant to meet colleagues in real life, talk to them over coffee and have lively discussions. It is a relive after having had the Corona restrictions. The exhibition was not as large as usual, surely because of the costs involved in traveling and exporting material to Australia. However, happily, a good number of sponsors were present anyway; I find the exhibitions are always the heart of the meeting. There was also a cute fluffy guest that could be petted.

An impression of Melbourne
The fluffy guest

Martin Lutz and I were the Dutch National Committee representatives to the General Assembly and we had three long evenings discussing withdrawal of adhering bodies (mostly for financial reasons), voting for  nominations of commission members and notably the admission of The African Crystallographic Association (AfCA) as a Regional Associate of the International Union of Crystallography. There was also a report about the achievements of the various IUCr journals, a very important source of income for the IUCr. The next IUCr meeting will be in Calgary in 2026 and it was decided that the 28th IUCr congress will be held in Berlin in 2029.

The winters in Melbourne are not that bad, just like a poor summer in the Netherlands, so it was nice to walk back and forth to the conference center which was located on a relaxed pedestrian area with cafés and restaurants close to the Yarra river. All in all, I found the very long traveling time was worth the effort!