The 1500 square foot X-ray crystallography suite on the first floor of BST3 houses the main equipment and is supplemented by two environmentally controlled 200 square foot rooms dedicated to crystallography to grow, store, and monitor crystals, at ambient and at 4 degrees C. The X-ray suite is partitioned into 6 rooms, with each devoted to a particular function. Multiple generators and detectors are controlled via a central computer room to initiate and monitor data collection in the adjacent X-ray generator rooms. The control room also permits direct entry to and constant visualization of experiments in the generator rooms. The X-ray equipment is from Rigaku/MSC and represents a mix idealized for a multitude of experimental parameters. Two state of the art, high intensity, FR-E generators provide a combination of existing rotating anode expertise and state-of-the-art microfocus X-ray generation technology. The results is a high brilliance generator that operates at only 2kW with a focal spot size of 0.07mm that produces four to twelve times, depending on the optic configuration, the measured flux compared to a conventional rotating anode generator running at 5.4kW. Both ports of each generator are used and detectors are Saturn 944 CCD, RAXIS IV++ image plate, as well as a high throughput RAXIS HTC image plate detector. All detectors are equipped with VariMax optics to provide high intensity and highly focused X-ray beams, as well as X-stream 2000 cryogenic systems. Ports supporting the CCD detector utilize HF (high flux) optics, while those supporting the image plate detectors utilize HR (high resolution) optics. This mix allows for optimal data to be collected on very small and normal sized crystals, as well as crystals with large unit cells typically containing very large proteins, viruses, or protein-protein assemblies. One of the generators also utilizes an ACTOR robot for automatically mounting and collecting partial data on a series of crystals, and rapidly screening them to determine which have the best diffraction characteristics. In-house liquid and dry nitrogen gas is supplied for all cryogenic systems.
In addition, the department has joined a collaborative access team (SER-CAT) at the Advanced Photon Source in Argonne, IL, to guarantee regular synchrotron access to local crystallographers when the absolute highest resolution possible is needed, only extremely small crystals are available, or MAD phasing experiments are needed.
Within the main X-ray crystallography suite are located three additional labs, devoted to crystallization and computational analysis. One room is devoted to crystallization and contains a HoneyBee 7+1 robotic system from Genomic Solutions for automatic preparation of crystallization screening trays, allowing for crystallization setups using 100 nL volume per drop, significantly reducing the mount of material needed for crystal screening. There are two Minstrel I systems, one at room temperature for automatic and unattended imaging of sample in the trays, and a computer system for controlling/viewing images from a second Minstrel I system remotely located in the crystallization cold room. A second room serves as a microscopy room, for crystal mounting and monitoring of crystallization set-ups and contains multiple Olympus SZX12, SZX7, and SZ-61 microscopes, with the high-end microscopes equipped with high-resolution cameras and interfaced with LCD monitors and workstations for image capturing and recording. A third room is a computational room, containing multiple workstations, with stereo graphics capabilities to facilitate rapid analysis on incoming data.
Collectively, the X-ray crystallography facility and its resources provide everything needed to carry out cutting edge, atomic resolution X-ray crystallographic analysis of macromolecules. Professor Joanne I. Yeh serves as the Director of the X-ray facility and Professor William Furey as the co-director.
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