Anomalous signal from S atoms in protein crystallographic data from an X-ray free-electron laser.
ACTA CRYSTALLOGRAPHICA SECTION D: BIOLOGICAL CRYSTALLOGRAPHY 2013;
69:838-42. [PMID:
23633593 DOI:
10.1107/s0907444913002448]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 48] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/31/2012] [Accepted: 01/24/2013] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
Abstract
X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) enable crystallographic data collection using extremely bright femtosecond pulses from microscopic crystals beyond the limitations of conventional radiation damage. This diffraction-before-destruction approach requires a new crystal for each FEL shot and, since the crystals cannot be rotated during the X-ray pulse, data collection requires averaging over many different crystals and a Monte Carlo integration of the diffraction intensities, making the accurate determination of structure factors challenging. To investigate whether sufficient accuracy can be attained for the measurement of anomalous signal, a large data set was collected from lysozyme microcrystals at the newly established `multi-purpose spectroscopy/imaging instrument' of the SPring-8 Ångstrom Compact Free-Electron Laser (SACLA) at RIKEN Harima. Anomalous difference density maps calculated from these data demonstrate that serial femtosecond crystallography using a free-electron laser is sufficiently accurate to measure even the very weak anomalous signal of naturally occurring S atoms in a protein at a photon energy of 7.3 keV.
Collapse