Structural Biology Research Center, Photon Factory, High Energy Research Organization (KEK), 1-1 Oho, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0801, Japan.
J Synchrotron Radiat. 2011 Jan;18(1):11-5. doi: 10.1107/S0909049510028670. Epub 2010 Nov 5.
A direct outcome of the exponential growth of macromolecular crystallography is the continuously increasing demand for synchrotron beam time, both from academic and industrial users. As more and more projects entail screening a profusion of sample crystals, fully automated procedures at every level of the experiments are being implemented at all synchrotron facilities. One of the major obstacles to achieving such automation lies in the sample recognition and centring in the X-ray beam. The capacity of UV light to specifically react with aromatic residues present in proteins or with DNA base pairs is at the basis of UV-assisted crystal centring. Although very efficient, a well known side effect of illuminating biological samples with strong UV sources is the damage induced on the irradiated samples. In the present study the effectiveness of a softer UV light for crystal centring by taking advantage of low-power light-emitting diode (LED) sources has been investigated. The use of UV LEDs represents a low-cost solution for crystal centring with high specificity.
大分子晶体学呈指数式增长的直接结果是，学术界和工业界对同步加速器束流时间的需求不断增加。随着越来越多的项目需要筛选大量的样品晶体，所有同步加速器设施都在各个实验层面实施了完全自动化的程序。实现这种自动化的主要障碍之一在于 X 射线光束中的样品识别和中心定位。紫外线能够与蛋白质中的芳香残基或 DNA 碱基对特异性反应，这是 UV 辅助晶体中心定位的基础。尽管非常有效，但用强紫外线源照射生物样品的一个众所周知的副作用是对辐照样品造成的损伤。在本研究中，利用低功率发光二极管（LED）光源，研究了较软的紫外光对晶体中心定位的有效性。使用 UV LEDs 是一种具有高特异性的低成本晶体中心定位解决方案。
