scholarly journals Whole-pattern fitting technique in serial femtosecond nanocrystallography

IUCrJ ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 127-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruben A. Dilanian ◽  
Sophie R. Williams ◽  
Andrew V. Martin ◽  
Victor A. Streltsov ◽  
Harry M. Quiney

Serial femtosecond X-ray crystallography (SFX) has created new opportunities in the field of structural analysis of protein nanocrystals. The intensity and timescale characteristics of the X-ray free-electron laser sources used in SFX experiments necessitate the analysis of a large collection of individual crystals of variable shape and quality to ultimately solve a single, average crystal structure. Ensembles of crystals are commonly encountered in powder diffraction, but serial crystallography is different because each crystal is measured individually and can be orientedviaindexing and merged into a three-dimensional data set, as is done for conventional crystallography data. In this way, serial femtosecond crystallography data lie in between conventional crystallography data and powder diffraction data, sharing features of both. The extremely small sizes of nanocrystals, as well as the possible imperfections of their crystallite structure, significantly affect the diffraction pattern and raise the question of how best to extract accurate structure-factor moduli from serial crystallography data. Here it is demonstrated that whole-pattern fitting techniques established for one-dimensional powder diffraction analysis can be feasibly extended to higher dimensions for the analysis of merged SFX diffraction data. It is shown that for very small crystals, whole-pattern fitting methods are more accurate than Monte Carlo integration methods that are currently used.

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (5) ◽  
pp. 1113-1120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Esko Oksanen ◽  
François Dauvergne ◽  
Adrian Goldman ◽  
Monika Budayova-Spano

H atoms play a central role in enzymatic mechanisms, but H-atom positions cannot generally be determined by X-ray crystallography. Neutron crystallography, on the other hand, can be used to determine H-atom positions but it is experimentally very challenging. Yeast inorganic pyrophosphatase (PPase) is an essential enzyme that has been studied extensively by X-ray crystallography, yet the details of the catalytic mechanism remain incompletely understood. The temperature instability of PPase crystals has in the past prevented the collection of a neutron diffraction data set. This paper reports how the crystal growth has been optimized in temperature-controlled conditions. To stabilize the crystals during neutron data collection a Peltier cooling device that minimizes the temperature gradient along the capillary has been developed. This device allowed the collection of a full neutron diffraction data set.


2013 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. i11-i12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yongho Kee ◽  
Hoseop Yun

The structure of Li3V2(PO4)3has been reinvestigated from single-crystal X-ray data. Although the results of the previous studies (all based on powder diffraction data) are comparable with our redetermination, all atoms were refined with anisotropic displacement parameters in the current study, and the resulting bond lengths are more accurate than those determined from powder diffraction data. The title compound adopts the Li3Fe2(PO4)3structure type. The structure is composed of VO6octahedra and PO4tetrahedra by sharing O atoms to form the three-dimensional anionic framework∞3[V2(PO4)3]3−. The positions of the Li+ions in the empty channels can vary depending on the synthetic conditions. Bond-valence-sum calculations showed structures that are similar to the results of the present study seem to be more stable compared with others. The classical charge balance of the title compound can be represented as [Li+]3[V3+]2[P5+]3[O2−]12.


2016 ◽  
Vol 72 (8) ◽  
pp. 1159-1162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alagappa Rammohan ◽  
James A. Kaduk

The crystal structure of anhydrous tripotassium citrate, [K3(C6H5O7)]n, has been solved and refined using laboratory X-ray powder diffraction data, and optimized using density functional techniques. The three unique potassium cations are 6-, 8-, and 6-coordinate (all irregular). The [KOn] coordination polyhedra share edges and corners to form a three-dimensional framework, with channels running parallel to thecaxis. The only hydrogen bond is an intramolecular one involving the hydroxy group and the central carboxylate group, with graph-set motifS(5).


Author(s):  
Alagappa Rammohan ◽  
James A. Kaduk

The crystal structure of trirubidium citrate, 3Rb+·C6H5O73−, has been solved and refined using laboratory X-ray powder diffraction data, and optimized using density functional techniques. The two independent Rb+cations are seven- and eight-coordinate, with bond-valence sums of 0.99 and 0.92 valence units. The coordination polyhedra share edges and corners to form a three-dimensional framework. The only hydrogen bond is an intramolecular one between the hydroxy group and the central carboxylate, with graph setS(5). The hydrophobic methylene groups lie in pockets in the framework.


Author(s):  
Alagappa Rammohan ◽  
James A. Kaduk

The crystal structure of the title compound, 3Rb+·C6H5O73−·H2O, has been solved and refined using laboratory X-ray powder diffraction data, and optimized using density functional techniques. The hydroxy group participates in an intramolecular hydrogen bond to the deprotonated central carboxylate group with graph-set motifS(5). The water molecule acts as a hydrogen-bond donor to both terminal and central carboxylate O atoms. The three independent rubidium cations are seven-, six- and six-coordinate, with bond-valence sums of 0.84, 1.02, and 0.95, respectively. In the extended structure, their polyhedra share edges and corners to form a three-dimensional network. The hydrophobic methylene groups occupy channels along thebaxis.


2009 ◽  
Vol 65 (6) ◽  
pp. i44-i44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhen-Hua Liang ◽  
Kai-Bin Tang ◽  
Qian-Wang Chen ◽  
Hua-Gui Zheng

Rubidium dicalcium triniobate(V), RbCa2Nb3O10, has been synthesized by solid-state reaction and its crystal structure refined from X-ray powder diffraction data using Rietveld analysis. The compound is a three-layer perovskite Dion–Jacobson phase with the perovskite-like slabs derived by termination of the three-dimensional CaNbO3perovskite structure along theabplane. The rubidium ions (4/mmmsymmetry) are located in the interstitial space.


2018 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 266-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus H. Mendenhall

This work provides a short summary of techniques for formally-correct handling of statistical uncertainties in Poisson-statistics dominated data, with emphasis on X-ray powder diffraction patterns. Correct assignment of uncertainties for low counts is documented. Further, we describe a technique for adaptively rebinning such data sets to provide more uniform statistics across a pattern with a wide range of count rates, from a few (or no) counts in a background bin to on-peak regions with many counts. This permits better plotting of data and analysis of a smaller number of points in a fitting package, without significant degradation of the information content of the data set. Examples of the effect of this on a diffraction data set are given.


2014 ◽  
Vol 60 ◽  
pp. 39-55
Author(s):  
R. A. Crowther ◽  
A. G. W. Leslie

Ulrich (Uli) Arndt was a physicist and engineer whose contributions to the development of a wide range of instrumentation for X-ray crystallography played an important part in our ability to solve the atomic structure of large biological molecules. Such detailed information about protein structures has for the past 50 years underpinned the huge advances in the field of molecular biology. His innovations spanned all aspects of data generation and collection, from improvements in X-ray tubes, through novel designs for diffractometers and cameras to film scanners and more direct methods of X-ray detection. When he started in the field, the intensities of individual X-ray reflections were often estimated by eye from films. By the end of his career the whole process of collecting from a crystal a three-dimensional data set, possibly comprising hundreds of thousands of measurements, was fully automated and very rapid.


2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (a1) ◽  
pp. C1449-C1449
Author(s):  
Tao Zhang ◽  
Shifeng Jin ◽  
Yuanxin Gu ◽  
Yao He ◽  
Haifu Fan

With the serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) [1] using hard X-ray free-electron laser as light source, it is possible to obtained three-dimensional single-crystal diffraction data from powder samples consisting of submicron crystal grains. This offers two advantages. First, complicated crystal structures far beyond the ability of powder X-ray diffraction analysis now can be solved easily; second, mixtures of two or more crystalline components can be examined in a single experiment. The percentage of each component can be determined accurately and the crystal structure of them can be solved readily. Simulating calculations were performed with a mixture of two different kinds of zeolites. The program suite CrystFEL [2] was used for simulating SFX diffraction patterns, diffraction indexing and Monte-Carlo integration of diffraction intensities. The program suite SHELX [3] was used for structure determination. Satisfactory results have been obtained and will be discussed in detail.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irene Barbarin-Bocahu ◽  
Marc GRAILLE

The determination of three dimensional structures of macromolecules is one of the actual challenge in biology with the ultimate objective of understanding their function. So far, X-ray crystallography is the most popular method to solve structure, but this technique relies on the generation of diffracting crystals. Once a correct data set has been obtained, the calculation of electron density maps requires to solve the so-called phase problem using different approaches. The most frequently used technique is molecular replacement, which relies on the availability of the structure of a protein sharing strong structural similarity with the studied protein. Its success rate is directly correlated with the quality of the models used for the molecular replacement trials. The availability of models as accurate as possible is then definitely critical. Very recently, a breakthrough step has been made in the field of protein structure prediction thanks to the use of machine learning approaches as implemented in the AlphaFold or RoseTTAFold structure prediction programs. Here, we describe how these recent improvements helped us to solve the crystal structure of a protein involved in the nonsense-mediated mRNA decay pathway (NMD), an mRNA quality control pathway dedicated to the elimination of eukaryotic mRNAs harboring premature stop codons.


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