Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Smith, Janet L
• Fischetti, Robert F
• Yamamoto, Masaki

Titel

Micro-crystallography comes of age

Ist Teil von

• Current opinion in structural biology, 2012-10, Vol.22 (5), p.602-612

Ort / Verlag

England: Elsevier Ltd

Erscheinungsjahr

2012

Quelle

MEDLINE

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• ► X-ray micro-beams permit structure determination from small or imperfect crystals. ► Robust micro-beams require source, optics and sample support to be extremely stable. ► Four different approaches to making a 1–20-μm beam have been implemented. ► A growing demand has led to ∼20 beamlines for micro-crystallography worldwide. ► Micro-beams enable data collection from LCP-grown crystals and crystals in situ. The latest revolution in macromolecular crystallography was incited by the development of dedicated, user friendly, micro-crystallography beam lines. Brilliant X-ray beams of diameter 20μm or less, now available at most synchrotron sources, enable structure determination from samples that previously were inaccessible. Relative to traditional crystallography, crystals with one or more small dimensions have diffraction patterns with vastly improved signal-to-noise when recorded with an appropriately matched beam size. Structures can be solved from isolated, well diffracting regions within inhomogeneous samples. This review summarizes the technological requirements and approaches to producing micro-beams and how they continue to change the practice of crystallography.