Open AccessReport on a project on three‐dimensional imaging of the biological cell by single‐particle X‐ray diffraction
Author(s) -
Sayre D.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
acta crystallographica section a
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1600-5724
pISSN - 0108-7673
DOI - 10.1107/s010876730705550x
Subject(s) - diffraction , bounded function , object (grammar) , particle (ecology) , extension (predicate logic) , x ray crystallography , physics , work (physics) , x ray , crystallography , optics , computer science , mathematics , mathematical analysis , chemistry , geology , quantum mechanics , artificial intelligence , oceanography , programming language
Single‐particle X‐ray diffraction is an extension of X‐ray crystallography which allows the specimen to be any small solid‐state bounded object; in Shapiro et al. [ Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA (2005), 102 , 15343–15346] and Thibault et al. [ Acta Cryst. (2006), A 62 , 248–261], the reader can find descriptions of a recent StonyBrook/Berkeley/Cornell two‐dimensional imaging of a yeast cell by this technique. Our present work is aimed at extending the technique to the three‐dimensional imaging of a cell. However, the usual method of doing that, namely rotating the specimen into many orientations in the X‐ray beam, has not as yet given sufficiently good three‐dimensional diffraction data to allow the work to go forward, the largest problem being the difficulty of preventing unwanted levels of change in the specimen through the extended exposure to a hostile environment of X‐rays and, in some cases, high vacuum and/or extreme cold. The present paper discusses possible methods of dealing with this problem.