School of Chemistry, University of Manchester, Brunswick Street, Manchester M13 9PL, England.
ESRF, 71 avenue des Martyrs, 38000 Grenoble, France ; Faculty of Natural Sciences, Keele University, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, England.
IUCrJ. 2015 Feb 3;2(Pt 2):283-91. doi: 10.1107/S205225251402795X. eCollection 2015 Mar 1.
A current overview of synchrotron radiation (SR) in macromolecular crystallography (MX) instrumentation, methods and applications is presented. Automation has been and remains a central development in the last decade, as have the rise of remote access and of industrial service provision. Results include a high number of Protein Data Bank depositions, with an increasing emphasis on the successful use of microcrystals. One future emphasis involves pushing the frontiers of using higher and lower photon energies. With the advent of X-ray free-electron lasers, closely linked to SR developments, the use of ever smaller samples such as nanocrystals, nanoclusters and single molecules is anticipated, as well as the opening up of femtosecond time-resolved diffraction structural studies. At SR sources, a very high-throughput assessment for the best crystal samples and the ability to tackle just a few micron and sub-micron crystals will become widespread. With higher speeds and larger detectors, diffraction data volumes are becoming long-term storage and archiving issues; the implications for today and the future are discussed. Together with the rise of the storage ring to its current pre-eminence in MX data provision, the growing tendency of central facility sites to offer other centralized facilities complementary to crystallography, such as cryo-electron microscopy and NMR, is a welcome development.
本文综述了同步辐射（SR）在高分子晶体学（MX）仪器、方法和应用中的最新进展。自动化一直是过去十年的核心发展方向，远程访问和工业服务的兴起也是如此。研究结果包括大量蛋白质数据库（PDB）的沉积，越来越强调成功使用微晶。未来的一个重点是推动利用更高和更低光子能量的前沿。随着与 SR 发展密切相关的 X 射线自由电子激光的出现，预计将使用更小的样品，如纳米晶体、纳米团簇和单分子，以及开启飞秒时间分辨衍射结构研究。在同步辐射源上，对最佳晶体样品的高通量评估以及处理仅几微米和亚微米晶体的能力将变得普遍。随着速度的提高和探测器的增大，衍射数据量成为长期存储和归档的问题；本文讨论了其对当前和未来的影响。随着储存环在 MX 数据提供方面的重要性日益凸显，中央设施站点越来越倾向于提供与晶体学互补的其他集中设施，如冷冻电子显微镜和 NMR，这是一个受欢迎的发展。
