Description
Serial crystallography at X-ray Free Electron Lasers (XFELs)1 has proven to
be a valuable addition to the array of structure determination techniques presently
available, particularly for time-resolved studies involving either photo-sensitive
systems2,3, radiation damage sensitive sample4 or potentially for systems involving
the mixing of substrate with a system under study5. The European X-ray Free
Electron Laser6 (EuXFEL) presents a new and expanded capability to perform
serial crystallography and single particle imaging experiments. This is not just
because additional XFEL sources create a higher availability of experimental time,
but also because the European XFEL offers the highest repetition rate of XFEL
pulses of all XFELs with orders more pulses per unit time.
In this presentation I will outline the experimental capabilities of the Single
Particles, Clusters and Biomolecules and Serial Femtosecond Crystallography
(SPB/SFX) instrument7 of the EuXFEL, an instrument designed to predominantly
support structural biology applications. I will show a selection of results from the
first experiments at the EuXFEL which demonstrate that we can successfully
exploit the Megahertz repetition rate of EuXFEL for both serial crystallography8,9
and for single particle imaging. Finally, I’ll give an outlook to future experiments
that may be performed at the SPB/SFX instrument.
Chapman, H. N. et al. Femtosecond X-ray protein nanocrystallography. Nature
470, 73 (2011).
2. Nango, E. et al. A three-dimensional movie of structural changes in
bacteriorhodopsin. Science 354, 1552–1557 (2016).
3. Tenboer, J. et al. Time-resolved serial crystallography captures high-resolution
intermediates of photoactive yellow protein. Science 346, 1242–1246 (2014).
4. Suga, M. et al. Native structure of photosystem II at 1.95 Å resolution viewed by
femtosecond X-ray pulses. Nature 517, 99–103 (2014).
5. Schmidt, M. Mix and Inject: Reaction Initiation by Diffusion for Time-Resolved
Macromolecular Crystallography. Advances in Condensed Matter Physics 2013,
1–10 (2013).
6. Tschentscher, T. et al. Photon Beam Transport and Scientific Instruments at the
European XFEL. Applied Sciences 7, 592–35 (2017).
7. Mancuso, A. P., Reimers, N., Borchers, G., Aquila, A. & Giewekemeyer, K.
Technical design report: Scientific instrument Single Particles, Clusters, and
Biomolecules (SPB). (European XFEL, 2013).
8. Wiedorn, M., Oberthuer, D., et al, Nature Communications, accepted.
9. Grünbein, M., et al, Nature Communications, 9, 3487 (2018).
Primary author
Dr
Adrian Mancuso
(European XFEL)
