3pcq

Publication Abstract from PubMed

X-ray crystallography provides the vast majority of macromolecular structures, but the success of the method relies on growing crystals of sufficient size. In conventional measurements, the necessary increase in X-ray dose to record data from crystals that are too small leads to extensive damage before a diffraction signal can be recorded. It is particularly challenging to obtain large, well-diffracting crystals of membrane proteins, for which fewer than 300 unique structures have been determined despite their importance in all living cells. Here we present a method for structure determination where single-crystal X-ray diffraction 'snapshots' are collected from a fully hydrated stream of nanocrystals using femtosecond pulses from a hard-X-ray free-electron laser, the Linac Coherent Light Source. We prove this concept with nanocrystals of photosystem I, one of the largest membrane protein complexes. More than 3,000,000 diffraction patterns were collected in this study, and a three-dimensional data set was assembled from individual photosystem I nanocrystals ( approximately 200 nm to 2 mum in size). We mitigate the problem of radiation damage in crystallography by using pulses briefer than the timescale of most damage processes. This offers a new approach to structure determination of macromolecules that do not yield crystals of sufficient size for studies using conventional radiation sources or are particularly sensitive to radiation damage.

Femtosecond X-ray protein nanocrystallography.,Chapman HN, Fromme P, Barty A, White TA, Kirian RA, Aquila A, Hunter MS, Schulz J, Deponte DP, Weierstall U, Doak RB, Maia FR, Martin AV, Schlichting I, Lomb L, Coppola N, Shoeman RL, Epp SW, Hartmann R, Rolles D, Rudenko A, Foucar L, Kimmel N, Weidenspointner G, Holl P, Liang M, Barthelmess M, Caleman C, Boutet S, Bogan MJ, Krzywinski J, Bostedt C, Bajt S, Gumprecht L, Rudek B, Erk B, Schmidt C, Homke A, Reich C, Pietschner D, Struder L, Hauser G, Gorke H, Ullrich J, Herrmann S, Schaller G, Schopper F, Soltau H, Kuhnel KU, Messerschmidt M, Bozek JD, Hau-Riege SP, Frank M, Hampton CY, Sierra RG, Starodub D, Williams GJ, Hajdu J, Timneanu N, Seibert MM, Andreasson J, Rocker A, Jonsson O, Svenda M, Stern S, Nass K, Andritschke R, Schroter CD, Krasniqi F, Bott M, Schmidt KE, Wang X, Grotjohann I, Holton JM, Barends TR, Neutze R, Marchesini S, Fromme R, Schorb S, Rupp D, Adolph M, Gorkhover T, Andersson I, Hirsemann H, Potdevin G, Graafsma H, Nilsson B, Spence JC Nature. 2011 Feb 3;470(7332):73-7. PMID:21293373^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.