Making the most of an abundance of data.

The Guest Editors introduce the special issue based on talks at the CCP4 Study Weekend 2023. The virtual issue is available at https://journals.iucr.

Small-rotative fixed-target serial synchrotron crystallography (SR-FT-SSX) for molecular crystals.

The increasing availability of ultrabright Light Sources is facilitating the study of smaller crystals at faster timescales but with an increased risk of severe X-ray damage, leading to developments in multi-crystal methods such as serial crystallography (SX). SX studies on crystals with small unit cells are challenging as very few reflections are recorded in a single data image, making it difficult to determine the orientation matrix for each crystal and thus preventing the combination of the data from all crystals for structure solution. We herein present a Small-Rotative Fixed-Target Serial Synchrotron Crystallography (SR-FT-SSX) methodology, in which rotation of the serial target through a small diffraction angle at each crystal delivers high-quality data, facilitating ab initio unit cell determination and atomic-scale structure solution.

How Do Gepotidacin and Zoliflodacin Stabilize DNA Cleavage Complexes with Bacterial Type IIA Topoisomerases? 1. Experimental Definition of Metal Binding Sites.

One of the challenges for experimental structural biology in the 21st century is to see chemical reactions happen. () DNA gyrase is a type IIA topoisomerase that can create temporary double-stranded DNA breaks to regulate DNA topology. Drugs, such as gepotidacin, zoliflodacin and the quinolone moxifloxacin, can stabilize these normally transient DNA strand breaks and kill bacteria.

VMXm - A sub-micron focus macromolecular crystallography beamline at Diamond Light Source.

VMXm joins the suite of operational macromolecular crystallography beamlines at Diamond Light Source. It has been designed to optimize rotation data collections from protein crystals less than 10 µm and down to below 1 µm in size. The beamline has a fully focused beam of 0.

Ligand effects on gas adsorption in nanoporous phthalocyanine crystals.

X-ray diffraction is used to study the sorption of CO and NO in two phthalocyanine nanoporous crystals (PNCs) with 4,4' bipyridine or 4,4' bipyrimidine coordinated to open Co sites, demonstrating how the coordinated ligands influence the gas sorption properties and structures of the PNCs.

Crystals in the community and the classroom.

The growing pressure on school curricula has meant crystals and the science of crystallography have been cut from or made optional for many educational programs. This omission is a serious disservice to the history and understanding of modern sciences, given that crystallography underpins many of the greatest advancements in science over the past century, is a critical component of many modern research papers and patents, and has 29 Nobel Prizes awarded in the field. This contribution describes a simple activity to target classroom and public engagement with crystallography, using marshmallows or equivalent sweets/candy to represent atoms and cocktail sticks to represent bonds, together with examples of how crystals are studied and how they are useful.

Atomic structure of a nudivirus occlusion body protein determined from a 70-year-old crystal sample.

Infectious protein crystals are an essential part of the viral lifecycle for double-stranded DNA Baculoviridae and double-stranded RNA cypoviruses. These viral protein crystals, termed occlusion bodies or polyhedra, are dense protein assemblies that form a crystalline array, encasing newly formed virions. Here, using X-ray crystallography we determine the structure of a polyhedrin from Nudiviridae.

A 2.8 Å Structure of Zoliflodacin in a DNA Cleavage Complex with DNA Gyrase.

Since 2000, some thirteen quinolones and fluoroquinolones have been developed and have come to market. The quinolones, one of the most successful classes of antibacterial drugs, stabilize DNA cleavage complexes with DNA gyrase and topoisomerase IV (topo IV), the two bacterial type IIA topoisomerases. The dual targeting of gyrase and topo IV helps decrease the likelihood of resistance developing.

A Sample Preparation Pipeline for Microcrystals at the VMXm Beamline.

The mounting of microcrystals (<10 µm) for single crystal cryo-crystallography presents a non-trivial challenge. Improvements in data quality have been seen for microcrystals with the development of beamline optics, beam stability and variable beam size focusing from submicron to microns, such as at the VMXm beamline at Diamond Light Source. Further improvements in data quality will be gained through improvements in sample environment and sample preparation.

Scanning electron microscopy as a method for sample visualization in protein X-ray crystallography.

Developing methods to determine high-resolution structures from micrometre- or even submicrometre-sized protein crystals has become increasingly important in recent years. This applies to both large protein complexes and membrane proteins, where protein production and the subsequent growth of large homogeneous crystals is often challenging, and to samples which yield only micro- or nanocrystals such as amyloid or viral polyhedrin proteins. The versatile macromolecular crystallography microfocus (VMXm) beamline at Diamond Light Source specializes in X-ray diffraction measurements from micro- and nanocrystals.

Direct measurement of X-ray-induced heating of microcrystals.

Temperature control is a key aspect of macromolecular crystallography, with the technique of cryocooling routinely being used to mitigate X-ray-induced damage. Beam-induced heating could cause the temperature of crystals to rise above the glass transition temperature, greatly increasing the rate of damage. X-ray-induced heating of ruby crystals of 20-40 µm in size has been quantified non-invasively by monitoring the emission wavelengths of X-ray-induced fluorescence during exposure to the X-ray beam.

Exploiting Microbeams for Membrane Protein Structure Determination.

A reproducible, and sample independent means of predictably obtaining large, well-ordered crystals has proven elusive in macromolecular crystallography. In the structure determination pipeline, crystallisation often proves to be a rate-limiting step, and the process of obtaining even small or badly ordered crystals can prove time-consuming and laborious. This is particularly true in the field of membrane protein crystallography and this is reflected in the limited number of unique membrane protein structures deposited in the protein data bank (less than 650 by June 2016 - http://blanco.

In vacuo X-ray data collection from graphene-wrapped protein crystals.

The measurement of diffraction data from macromolecular crystal samples held in vacuo holds the promise of a very low X-ray background and zero absorption of incident and scattered beams, leading to better data and the potential for accessing very long X-ray wavelengths (>3 Å) for native sulfur phasing. Maintaining the hydration of protein crystals under vacuum is achieved by the use of liquid jets, as with serial data collection at free-electron lasers, or is side-stepped by cryocooling the samples, as implemented at new synchrotron beamlines. Graphene has been shown to protect crystals from dehydration by creating an extremely thin layer that is impermeable to any exchanges with the environment.

Solid-state interconversions: unique 100 % reversible transformations between the ground and metastable states in single-crystals of a series of nickel(II) nitro complexes.

The solid-state, low-temperature linkage isomerism in a series of five square planar group 10 phosphino nitro complexes have been investigated by a combination of photocrystallographic experiments, Raman spectroscopy and computer modelling. The factors influencing the reversible solid-state interconversion between the nitro and nitrito structural isomers have also been investigated, providing insight into the dynamics of this process. The cis-[Ni(dcpe)(NO2)2] (1) and cis-[Ni(dppe)(NO2)2] (2) complexes show reversible 100 % interconversion between the η(1)-NO2 nitro isomer and the η(1)-ONO nitrito form when single-crystals are irradiated with 400 nm light at 100 K.

Visualization of membrane protein crystals in lipid cubic phase using X-ray imaging.

The focus in macromolecular crystallography is moving towards even more challenging target proteins that often crystallize on much smaller scales and are frequently mounted in opaque or highly refractive materials. It is therefore essential that X-ray beamline technology develops in parallel to accommodate such difficult samples. In this paper, the use of X-ray microradiography and microtomography is reported as a tool for crystal visualization, location and characterization on the macromolecular crystallography beamlines at the Diamond Light Source.

Photoactivated linkage isomerism in single crystals of nickel, palladium and platinum di-nitro complexes--a photocrystallographic investigation.

Low temperature, single crystal photocrystallographic studies have been carried out on four square planar Group 10 complexes [Ni(PEt(3))(2)(NO(2))(2)] 1, [Pd(PPh(3))(2)(NO(2))(2)] 2, [Pd(AsPh(3))(2)(NO(2))(2)] 3 and [Pt(PPh(3))(2)(NO(2))(2)] 4, in which the two nitro groups adopt the trans configuration. Irradiation with UV light, at 100 K, of single crystals of complexes 1-3 photoisomerise from the η(1)-NO(2) nitro form to the η(1)-ONO nitrito form occurred. Complex 1 underwent 25% conversion to the nitrito form before crystal decomposition occurred.

Dipyridyl β-diketonate complexes and their use as metalloligands in the formation of mixed-metal coordination networks.

The iron(III) and aluminium(III) complexes of 1,3-di(4-pyridyl)propane-1,3-dionato (dppd) and 1,3-di(3-pyridyl)propane-1,3-dionato (dmppd), [Fe(dppd)(3)] 1, [Fe(dmppd)(3)] 2, [Al(dppd)(3)] 3 and [Al(dmppd)(3)] 4 have been prepared. These complexes adopt molecular structures in which the metal centres contain distorted octahedral geometries. In contrast, the copper(II) and zinc(II) complexes [Cu(dppd)(2)] 5 and [Zn(dmppd)(2)] 6 both form polymeric structures in which coordination of the pyridyl groups into the axial positions of neighbouring metal centres links discrete square-planar complexes into two-dimensional networks.