Open AccessDrop-on-demand sample delivery for studying biocatalysts in action at X-ray free-electron lasers
Author(s) -
Franklin D. Fuller,
Sheraz Gul,
Ruchira Chatterjee,
E.S. Burgie,
I.D. Young,
Hugo Lebrette,
Vivek Srinivas,
Aaron S. Brewster,
Tara Michels-Clark,
J.A. Clinger,
Babak Andi,
Mohamed Ibrahim,
Ernest Pastor,
Casper de Lichtenberg,
Rana Hussein,
Christopher J. Pollock,
Miao Zhang,
Claudiu A. Stan,
Thomas Kröll,
Thomas Fransson,
Clemens Weninger,
Markus Kubin,
Pierre Aller,
Louise Lassalle,
Philipp Bräuer,
Mitchell D. Miller,
Muhamed Amin,
Sergey Koroidov,
Christian G. Roessler,
Marc Allaire,
Raymond G. Sierra,
Peter Docker,
James M. Glownia,
S. Nelson,
Jason E. Koglin,
Diling Zhu,
Matthieu Chollet,
Sanghoon Song,
Henrik T. Lemke,
Mao Liang,
Dimosthenis Sokaras,
Roberto Alonso-Mori,
Athina Zouni,
Johannes Messinger,
Uwe Bergmann,
Amie K. Boal,
J. Martin Bollinger,
Carsten Krebs,
Martin Högbom,
George N. Phillips,
Richard D. Vierstra,
Nicholas K. Sauter,
Allen M. Orville,
Jan Kern,
Vittal K. Yachandra,
Junko Yano
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
nature methods
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 19.469
H-Index - 318
eISSN - 1548-7105
pISSN - 1548-7091
DOI - 10.1038/nmeth.4195
Subject(s) - femtosecond , laser , drop (telecommunication) , macromolecule , spectroscopy , chemistry , free electron laser , electron , biological system , materials science , chemical physics , analytical chemistry (journal) , nanotechnology , optics , computer science , physics , biochemistry , quantum mechanics , biology , telecommunications , chromatography
X-ray crystallography at X-ray free-electron laser sources is a powerful method for studying macromolecules at biologically relevant temperatures. Moreover, when combined with complementary techniques like X-ray emission spectroscopy, both global structures and chemical properties of metalloenzymes can be obtained concurrently, providing insights into the interplay between the protein structure and dynamics and the chemistry at an active site. The implementation of such a multimodal approach can be compromised by conflicting requirements to optimize each individual method. In particular, the method used for sample delivery greatly affects the data quality. We present here a robust way of delivering controlled sample amounts on demand using acoustic droplet ejection coupled with a conveyor belt drive that is optimized for crystallography and spectroscopy measurements of photochemical and chemical reactions over a wide range of time scales. Studies with photosystem II, the phytochrome photoreceptor, and ribonucleotide reductase R2 illustrate the power and versatility of this method.