Abstract
Protein crystallography, being one of the most established methods for structure determination of biomacromolecules, relies on the diffraction analysis using X-rays for 3D (micro-)crystals. Electron diffraction is only employed for single layer 2D nano-crystals. However, there is no established method for analysing multi-layered 3D nano-sized protein crystals. Electron diffraction may fill this important niche, but several problems have to be surmounted for this method to become mainstream. Our group aims tackling some of the bottlenecks, and although our work is still very much in progress, we can report advances in some important areas. Here we summarise improvements in (i) the induction of growth of (nano-)crystals, (ii) electron diffraction data collection using the Medipix quantum area detector, (iii) unit cell determination using single, non- oriented diffraction patterns, (iv) integration of diffraction data and (v) phasing of electron diffraction data.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Chapman HN et al (2011) Femtosecond X-ray proteinnanocrystallography. Nature 470:73–81
Henderson R (1995) The potential and limitations of neutrons, electrons and X-rays for atomic resolution microscopy of unstained biological molecules. Q Rev Biophys 28:171–193
Chayen NE, Saridakis E (2002) Protein crystallization for genomics: towards high-throughput optimization techniques. Acta Crystallogr Sect D 58:921–927
Plaisier JR, Koning RI, Koerten HK, van Roon AM, Thomassen EAJ, Kuil ME, Hendrix J, Broennimann C, Pannu NS, Abrahams JP (2003) Area detectors in structural biology. Nucl Instrum Methods Phys Res A 509:274–282
Zou XD, Hovmöller A, Hovmöller S (2004) TRICE – a program for reconstructing 3D reciprocal space and determining unit cell parameters. Ultramicroscopy 98:187–193
Leslie AGW (1992) Joint CCP4 + ESF-EAMCB newsletter on protein crystallography 26
Kabsch W (2010) XDS. Acta Crystallogr Sect D 66:125–132
Bolanos-Garcia VM, Chayen NE (2009) New directions in conventional methods of protein crystallization. Prog Biophys Molec Biol 101:3–12
Cacciuto A, Auer S, Frenkel D (2004) Onset of heterogeneous crystal nucleation in colloidal suspensions. Nature 428:404–406
Nederlof I, Hosseini R, Georgieva D, Luo JH, Li DF, Abrahams JP (2011) A straightforward and robust method for introducing human hair as a nucleant into high throughput crystallization trials. Cryst Growth Des 11:1170–1176
Georgieva D, Jansen J, Sikharulidze I, Jiang L, Zandbergen HW, Abrahams JP (2011) Evaluation of medipix2 detector for recording electron diffraction data in low dose conditions. J Instrum 6:C01033
Llopart X et al (2002) Medipix2, A 64 k pixel readout chip with 55 μm square elements working in single photon counting mode. IEEE Trans Nucl Sci 49:2279–2283
McMullan G, Faruqi AR (2008) Electron microscope imaging of single particles using the Medipix2 detector. Nucl Inst Exp Phys A 591:129–133
Faruqi AR (2009) Principles and prospects of direct high resolution electron image acquisition with CMOS detectors at low energies. J Phys Condens Matter 21:314004
Kolb U, Gorelik T, Kubel C, Otten MT, Hubert D (2007) Towards auto- mated diffraction tomography: part I – data acquisition. Ultramicroscopy 107:507–513
Kolb U, Gorelik T, Otten MT, Hubert D (2008) Towards automated diffraction tomography: part II – cell parameter determination. Ultramicroscopy 108:763–772
Zhang D, Oleynikov P, Hovmöller S, Zou Z (2010) Collecting 3D electron diffraction data by the rotation method. Z Kristallogr 225:94–102
Jiang L, Georgieva D, Zandbergen HW, Abrahams JP (2009) Unit cell determination from non-oriented electron diffraction patterns. Acta Crystallogr Sect D 65:625–632
Jiang L, Georgieva D, IJspeert K, Abrahams JP (2009) An intelligent peak search program for digital electron diffraction images of 3D nano-crystals. Image and Signal processing CISP’09: Vol 17–19
Glaeser RM, Ceska TA (1989) High-voltage electron diffraction from bac-teriorhodopsin (purple membrane) is measurably dynamical. Acta Crystallogr Sect A 45:620–628
Glaeser RM, Downing KH (1993) High resolution electron crystallography of protein molecules. Ultramicroscopy 52:478–486
Abrahams JP (2010) The strong phase object approximation may allow extending crystallographic phases of dynamical electron diffraction patterns of 3D protein nano-crystals. Z Kristallogr 225:67–76
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this paper
Cite this paper
Abrahams, J.P., Georgieva, D., Jiang, L., Nederlof, I. (2012). Electron Diffraction of Protein 3D Nanocrystals. In: Kolb, U., Shankland, K., Meshi, L., Avilov, A., David, W. (eds) Uniting Electron Crystallography and Powder Diffraction. NATO Science for Peace and Security Series B: Physics and Biophysics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5580-2_36
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5580-2_36
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-94-007-5579-6
Online ISBN: 978-94-007-5580-2
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)