Rapid and efficient room-temperature serial synchrotron crystallography using the CFEL TapeDrive

Area of Science:

• Structural biology
• Biophysics
• Biochemistry

Background:

• Serial crystallography at synchrotron light sources (SSX) allows room-temperature data collection from micro-crystals of biological macromolecules.
• Current SSX methods are less routine and slower than traditional cryo-crystallography, limiting high-throughput applications.
• High-throughput SSX at physiological temperatures is desirable for fragment-based drug screening.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a high-throughput SSX method using a conveyor belt sample delivery system.
• To demonstrate the efficiency of the new system for collecting complete datasets from various proteins.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the CFEL TapeDrive, a conveyor belt-based sample delivery system for SSX.
• Tested the system with three proteins: Klebsiella pneumoniae CTX-M-14 β-lactamase, Nectria haematococca xylanase GH11, and Aspergillus flavus urate oxidase.
• Collected complete diffraction datasets at room temperature.

Main Results:

• Achieved complete dataset collection in under a minute per sample.
• Required only minimal amounts of protein sample for data collection.
• Successfully demonstrated the feasibility of high-throughput SSX with diverse biological proteins.

Conclusions:

• The CFEL TapeDrive system significantly accelerates SSX data collection.
• This advancement enables high-throughput SSX at room temperature with minimal sample consumption.
• The developed method holds promise for applications like fragment-based drug screening.