Crystal-on-crystal chips for in situ serial diffraction at room temperature

Area of Science:

• Structural biology
• Biophysics
• Crystallography

Background:

• Serial crystallography advances structural biology by enabling studies of challenging proteins and transient species.
• High protein consumption in room-temperature diffraction experiments necessitates sample economy.
• Current methods face limitations in crystal handling and delivery for large-scale serial crystallography.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and demonstrate novel
• crystal-on-crystal
• devices for enhanced in situ serial diffraction experiments.

Main Methods:

• Development of monocrystalline quartz-based
• crystal-on-crystal
• devices.
• Application of devices for large-scale serial diffraction at X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) and synchrotrons.
• Evaluation of protein consumption and data collection efficiency.

Main Results:

• The
• crystal-on-crystal
• devices effectively prevent vapor loss and reduce background X-ray scattering.
• Efficient delivery of millions of protein crystals to the X-ray beam is achieved.
• Protein consumption per dataset is comparable to conventional cryocrystallography.

Conclusions:

• The developed
• crystal-on-crystal
• devices significantly improve sample economy and experimental efficiency in serial crystallography.
• These devices are readily adaptable to XFEL and synchrotron beamlines.
• The technology facilitates near atomic resolution studies of challenging biological macromolecules and reactions.