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XFELs open a new era in structural chemical biology

Nature Chemical Biology volume 11, pages 895–899 (2015)Cite this article

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X-ray crystallography, the workhorse of structural biology, has been revolutionized by the advent of serial femtosecond crystallography using X-ray free electron lasers. Here, the fast pace and history of discoveries are discussed together with current challenges and the method's great potential to make new structural discoveries, such as the ability to generate molecular movies of biomolecules at work.

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Figure 1: Schematic picture of collection of time-resolved data with SFX crystallography.

DEBBIE MAIZELS/NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP

Figure 2: Highlights of structures of membrane proteins solved by SFX.

DEBBIE MAIZELS/NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP

Figure 3: Comparison of time-resolved Laue crystallography and time-resolved SFX crystallography.

DEBBIE MAIZELS/NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Science and Technology Centers Program of the US National Science Foundation through BioXFEL under agreement no. 1231306 and by the US National Institutes of Health awards 617095583 and U54GM094599. Portions of this research were carried out at the LCLS at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. LCLS is an Office of Science User Facility operated for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science by Stanford University.

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  1. Petra Fromme is at the School of Molecular Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA and at the Center for Applied Structural Discovery, Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA.,

    Petra Fromme

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Correspondence to Petra Fromme.

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Fromme, P. XFELs open a new era in structural chemical biology. Nat Chem Biol 11, 895–899 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio.1968

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