Outrunning free radicals in room-temperature macromolecular crystallography

Journal Article · Fri Jun 15 00:00:00 EDT 2012 · Acta Crystallographica. Section D: Biological Crystallography

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1107/S0907444912012553· OSTI ID:22515201

Axford, Danny ^[1]; Nettleship, Joanne E.; Owens, Raymond J. ^[2]; Robinson, James I.; Morgan, Ann W. ^[3]; Doré, Andrew S. ^[4]; Lebon, Guillaume; Tate, Christopher G. ^[5]; Fry, Elizabeth E.; Ren, Jingshan ^[6]; Stuart, David I. ^[1]; Evans, Gwyndaf ^[1]

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1. Diamond Light Source, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot OX11 0DE (United Kingdom)
2. Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Didcot OX11 0FA (United Kingdom)
3. University of Leeds, Leeds LS9 7FT (United Kingdom)
4. Heptares Therapeutics Ltd, BioPark, Welwyn Garden City AL7 3AX (United Kingdom)
5. MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Hills Road, Cambridge CB2 0QH (United Kingdom)
6. The Henry Wellcome Building for Genomic Medicine, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7BN (United Kingdom)

A systematic increase in lifetime is observed in room-temperature protein and virus crystals through the use of reduced exposure times and a fast detector. A significant increase in the lifetime of room-temperature macromolecular crystals is reported through the use of a high-brilliance X-ray beam, reduced exposure times and a fast-readout detector. This is attributed to the ability to collect diffraction data before hydroxyl radicals can propagate through the crystal, fatally disrupting the lattice. Hydroxyl radicals are shown to be trapped in amorphous solutions at 100 K. The trend in crystal lifetime was observed in crystals of a soluble protein (immunoglobulin γ Fc receptor IIIa), a virus (bovine enterovirus serotype 2) and a membrane protein (human A{sub 2A} adenosine G-protein coupled receptor). The observation of a similar effect in all three systems provides clear evidence for a common optimal strategy for room-temperature data collection and will inform the design of future synchrotron beamlines and detectors for macromolecular crystallography.

• OSTI ID: 22515201
• Journal Information: Acta Crystallographica. Section D: Biological Crystallography, Vol. 68, Issue Pt 7; Other Information: PMCID: PMC4791751; PMID: 22751666; PUBLISHER-ID: tz5006; OAI: oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4791751; Copyright (c) Owen et al. 2012; This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are cited.; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0907-4449
• Country of Publication: Denmark
• Language: English

Related Subjects

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS
SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY
CRYSTALLIZATION
CRYSTALS
LIFETIME
MATHEMATICAL SOLUTIONS
RADIATION EFFECTS
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0065-0273 K
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0273-0400 K
X RADIATION