Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-1604, USA.
Curr Opin Struct Biol. 2011 Aug;21(4):509-16. doi: 10.1016/j.sbi.2011.06.001.
The invention of free electron X-ray lasers has opened a new era for membrane protein structure determination with the recent first proof-of-principle of the new concept of femtosecond nanocrystallography. Structure determination is based on thousands of diffraction snapshots that are collected on a fully hydrated stream of nanocrystals. This review provides a summary of the method and describes how femtosecond X-ray crystallography overcomes the radiation-damage problem in X-ray crystallography, avoids the need for growth and freezing of large single crystals while offering a new method for direct digital phase determination by making use of the fully coherent nature of the X-ray beam. We briefly review the possibilities for time-resolved crystallography, and the potential for making 'molecular movies' of membrane proteins at work.
自由电子 X 射线激光的发明为膜蛋白结构测定开辟了一个新纪元,最近的飞秒纳米结晶学新概念的初步原理证明就是一个很好的例子。结构测定是基于在完全水合的纳米晶体流上收集的数千个衍射快照。本综述提供了该方法的总结,并描述了飞秒 X 射线晶体学如何克服 X 射线晶体学中的辐射损伤问题,避免了生长和冷冻大单晶的需要,同时通过利用 X 射线束的完全相干性质,提供了一种直接数字相测定的新方法。我们简要回顾了时间分辨晶体学的可能性,以及对膜蛋白在工作时进行“分子电影”制作的潜力。