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Rapid readout detector captures protein time-resolved WAXS

Nature Methods volume 7, pages 775–776 (2010)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

Time-resolved wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) is emerging as a powerful approach for visualizing global conformational changes in proteins in real time. WAXS-basedstudies to date include following the light-triggered reactions of hemoglobin1 and myoglobin2,3 in complex with carbon monoxide, and structural characterization of the photocycles of bacteriorhodopsin and proteorhodopsin4. Compared to time-resolved Laue diffraction and trapped intermediate studies5, time-resolved WAXS is a solution-based method and therefore permits visualizationof large conformational changes that might otherwise be restricted by protein-protein contacts in a crystal lattice. Conversely, because an ensemble of randomly oriented protein molecules is probed, structural information is averaged over all orientations and is therefore less detailed than that recovered using diffraction methods6. Nevertheless, structural refinement of α-helical movements against time-resolved WAXS difference data has been reported2,4.

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Figure 1: Time-resolved WAXS difference data recorded from detergent-solubilized samples of proteorhodopsin.

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Acknowledgements

We thank B. Henrich, E.F. Eikenberry and H. Billich for technical support. This work was supported by grants from the Human Frontiers Science Program and the Swedish Science Research Council.

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  1. Sebastian Westenhoff and Erik Malmerberg: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Sebastian Westenhoff, Erik Malmerberg, David Arnlund, Linda Johansson, Elena Nazarenko, Gergely Katona & Richard Neutze

  2. Stanford Linear Accelerator Center National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, California, USA

    Marco Cammarata

  3. Department of Physical Chemistry, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

    Jan Davidsson

  4. Department of Physiology, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Vincent Chaptal & Jeff Abramson

  5. Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland

    Andreas Menzel

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Correspondence to Richard Neutze.

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Westenhoff, S., Malmerberg, E., Arnlund, D. et al. Rapid readout detector captures protein time-resolved WAXS. Nat Methods 7, 775–776 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth1010-775c

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