Spatial-temporal characterization of photoemission in a streak-mode dynamic transmission electron microscope.

A long-standing motivation driving high-speed electron microscopy development is to capture phase transformations and material dynamics in real time with high spatial and temporal resolution. Current dynamic transmission electron microscopes (DTEMs) are limited to nanosecond temporal resolution and the ability to capture only a few frames of a transient event. With the motivation to overcome these limitations, we present our progress in developing a streak-mode DTEM (SM-DTEM) and demonstrate the recovery of picosecond images with high frame sequence depth.

Ultrafast structural changes within a photosynthetic reaction centre.

Photosynthetic reaction centres harvest the energy content of sunlight by transporting electrons across an energy-transducing biological membrane. Here we use time-resolved serial femtosecond crystallography using an X-ray free-electron laser to observe light-induced structural changes in the photosynthetic reaction centre of Blastochloris viridis on a timescale of picoseconds. Structural perturbations first occur at the special pair of chlorophyll molecules of the photosynthetic reaction centre that are photo-oxidized by light.

Ultracompact 3D microfluidics for time-resolved structural biology.

To advance microfluidic integration, we present the use of two-photon additive manufacturing to fold 2D channel layouts into compact free-form 3D fluidic circuits with nanometer precision. We demonstrate this technique by tailoring microfluidic nozzles and mixers for time-resolved structural biology at X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs). We achieve submicron jets with speeds exceeding 160 m s, which allows for the use of megahertz XFEL repetition rates.

Author Correction: Coherent diffractive imaging of microtubules using an X-ray laser.

An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.

Coherent diffractive imaging of microtubules using an X-ray laser.

X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) create new possibilities for structural studies of biological objects that extend beyond what is possible with synchrotron radiation. Serial femtosecond crystallography has allowed high-resolution structures to be determined from micro-meter sized crystals, whereas single particle coherent X-ray imaging requires development to extend the resolution beyond a few tens of nanometers. Here we describe an intermediate approach: the XFEL imaging of biological assemblies with helical symmetry.

Rapid sample delivery for megahertz serial crystallography at X-ray FELs.

Liquid microjets are a common means of delivering protein crystals to the focus of X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) for serial femtosecond crystallography measurements. The high X-ray intensity in the focus initiates an explosion of the microjet and sample. With the advent of X-ray FELs with megahertz rates, the typical velocities of these jets must be increased significantly in order to replenish the damaged material in time for the subsequent measurement with the next X-ray pulse.

Ultrafast nonthermal heating of water initiated by an X-ray Free-Electron Laser.

The bright ultrafast pulses of X-ray Free-Electron Lasers allow investigation into the structure of matter under extreme conditions. We have used single pulses to ionize and probe water as it undergoes a phase transition from liquid to plasma. We report changes in the structure of liquid water on a femtosecond time scale when irradiated by single 6.

Femtosecond X-ray diffraction from an aerosolized beam of protein nanocrystals.

High-resolution Bragg diffraction from aerosolized single granulovirus nanocrystals using an X-ray free-electron laser is demonstrated. The outer dimensions of the in-vacuum aerosol injector components are identical to conventional liquid-microjet nozzles used in serial diffraction experiments, which allows the injector to be utilized with standard mountings. As compared with liquid-jet injection, the X-ray scattering background is reduced by several orders of magnitude by the use of helium carrier gas rather than liquid.

Time-spliced X-ray diffraction imaging of magnetism dynamics in a NdNiO thin film.

Diffraction imaging of nonequilibrium dynamics at atomic resolution is becoming possible with X-ray free-electron lasers. However, there are unresolved problems with applying this method to objects that are confined in only one dimension. Here I show that reliable one-dimensional coherent diffraction imaging is possible by splicing together images recovered from different time delays in an optical pump X-ray probe experiment.

Analysis of XFEL serial diffraction data from individual crystalline fibrils.

Serial diffraction data collected at the Linac Coherent Light Source from crystalline amyloid fibrils delivered in a liquid jet show that the fibrils are well oriented in the jet. At low fibril concentrations, diffraction patterns are recorded from single fibrils; these patterns are weak and contain only a few reflections. Methods are developed for determining the orientation of patterns in reciprocal space and merging them in three dimensions.

Mix-and-diffuse serial synchrotron crystallography.

Unravelling the interaction of biological macromolecules with ligands and substrates at high spatial and temporal resolution remains a major challenge in structural biology. The development of serial crystallography methods at X-ray free-electron lasers and subsequently at synchrotron light sources allows new approaches to tackle this challenge. Here, a new polyimide tape drive designed for mix-and-diffuse serial crystallography experiments is reported.

Post-sample aperture for low background diffraction experiments at X-ray free-electron lasers.

The success of diffraction experiments from weakly scattering samples strongly depends on achieving an optimal signal-to-noise ratio. This is particularly important in single-particle imaging experiments where diffraction signals are typically very weak and the experiments are often accompanied by significant background scattering. A simple way to tremendously reduce background scattering by placing an aperture downstream of the sample has been developed and its application in a single-particle X-ray imaging experiment at FLASH is demonstrated.

FELIX: an algorithm for indexing multiple crystallites in X-ray free-electron laser snapshot diffraction images.

A novel algorithm for indexing multiple crystals in snapshot X-ray diffraction images, especially suited for serial crystallography data, is presented. The algorithm, FELIX, utilizes a generalized parametrization of the Rodrigues-Frank space, in which all crystal systems can be represented without singularities. The new algorithm is shown to be capable of indexing more than ten crystals per image in simulations of cubic, tetragonal and monoclinic crystal diffraction patterns.

From Macrocrystals to Microcrystals: A Strategy for Membrane Protein Serial Crystallography.

Serial protein crystallography was developed at X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) and is now also being applied at storage ring facilities. Robust strategies for the growth and optimization of microcrystals are needed to advance the field. Here we illustrate a generic strategy for recovering high-density homogeneous samples of microcrystals starting from conditions known to yield large (macro) crystals of the photosynthetic reaction center of Blastochloris viridis (RC).

Corrigendum: Double-flow focused liquid injector for efficient serial femtosecond crystallography.

This corrects the article DOI: 10.1038/srep44628.

Atomic structure of granulin determined from native nanocrystalline granulovirus using an X-ray free-electron laser.

To understand how molecules function in biological systems, new methods are required to obtain atomic resolution structures from biological material under physiological conditions. Intense femtosecond-duration pulses from X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) can outrun most damage processes, vastly increasing the tolerable dose before the specimen is destroyed. This in turn allows structure determination from crystals much smaller and more radiation sensitive than previously considered possible, allowing data collection from room temperature structures and avoiding structural changes due to cooling.

Lipidic cubic phase injector is a viable crystal delivery system for time-resolved serial crystallography.

Serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) using X-ray free-electron laser sources is an emerging method with considerable potential for time-resolved pump-probe experiments. Here we present a lipidic cubic phase SFX structure of the light-driven proton pump bacteriorhodopsin (bR) to 2.3 Å resolution and a method to investigate protein dynamics with modest sample requirement.

Serial femtosecond crystallography datasets from G protein-coupled receptors.

We describe the deposition of four datasets consisting of X-ray diffraction images acquired using serial femtosecond crystallography experiments on microcrystals of human G protein-coupled receptors, grown and delivered in lipidic cubic phase, at the Linac Coherent Light Source. The receptors are: the human serotonin receptor 2B in complex with an agonist ergotamine, the human δ-opioid receptor in complex with a bi-functional peptide ligand DIPP-NH2, the human smoothened receptor in complex with an antagonist cyclopamine, and finally the human angiotensin II type 1 receptor in complex with the selective antagonist ZD7155. All four datasets have been deposited, with minimal processing, in an HDF5-based file format, which can be used directly for crystallographic processing with CrystFEL or other software.

Recent developments in .

is a suite of programs for processing data from 'serial crystallography' experiments, which are usually performed using X-ray free-electron lasers (FELs) but also increasingly with other X-ray sources. The software suite has been under development since 2009, just before the first hard FEL experiments were performed, and has been significantly updated and improved since then. This article describes the most important improvements which have been made to since the first release version.

Macromolecular diffractive imaging using imperfect crystals.

The three-dimensional structures of macromolecules and their complexes are mainly elucidated by X-ray protein crystallography. A major limitation of this method is access to high-quality crystals, which is necessary to ensure X-ray diffraction extends to sufficiently large scattering angles and hence yields information of sufficiently high resolution with which to solve the crystal structure. The observation that crystals with reduced unit-cell volumes and tighter macromolecular packing often produce higher-resolution Bragg peaks suggests that crystallographic resolution for some macromolecules may be limited not by their heterogeneity, but by a deviation of strict positional ordering of the crystalline lattice.

Indications of radiation damage in ferredoxin microcrystals using high-intensity X-FEL beams.

Proteins that contain metal cofactors are expected to be highly radiation sensitive since the degree of X-ray absorption correlates with the presence of high-atomic-number elements and X-ray energy. To explore the effects of local damage in serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX), Clostridium ferredoxin was used as a model system. The protein contains two [4Fe-4S] clusters that serve as sensitive probes for radiation-induced electronic and structural changes.

Serial time-resolved crystallography of photosystem II using a femtosecond X-ray laser.

Photosynthesis, a process catalysed by plants, algae and cyanobacteria converts sunlight to energy thus sustaining all higher life on Earth. Two large membrane protein complexes, photosystem I and II (PSI and PSII), act in series to catalyse the light-driven reactions in photosynthesis. PSII catalyses the light-driven water splitting process, which maintains the Earth's oxygenic atmosphere.

Phasing coherently illuminated nanocrystals bounded by partial unit cells.

With the use of highly coherent femtosecond X-ray pulses from a free-electron laser, it is possible to record protein nanocrystal diffraction patterns with far more information than is present in conventional crystallographic diffraction data. It has been suggested that diffraction phases may be retrieved from such data via iterative algorithms, without the use of a priori information and without restrictions on resolution. Here, we investigate the extension of this approach to nanocrystals with edge terminations that produce partial unit cells, and hence cannot be described by a common repeating unit cell.