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Beamline ID 23-2

ID23-2_s

Fig. 1 View of the highly automated ID23-2 experimental hutch. 

The microfocus ID23-2 beamline 

The ESRF and EMBL-Grenoble have a strong tradition in improving the data collection possibilities from micro-crystals. These studies have led to the design and installation of a prototype MD1 for the ID13 microfocus beamline at the ESRF. The success of ID13 led to a large over subscription of applications from the Macromolecular Crystallography (MX) community that it was decided by the EMBL-Grenoble and ESRF to build a dedicated microfocus beamline. The EMBL-Grenoble has provided a beamline scientist for ID23-2 since it’s commissioning in 2005 and the current beamline scientist responsible is Max Nanao, a member of the Synchrotron Crystallography Team. It has been a huge success since it’s commissioning in 2005 and has already contributed to over 108 publications, including over 30 in high impact factor journals. The availability of such a specialized microfocus beamline to the European MX community has opened up new and exciting opportunities in X-ray crystallography, such as the possibility of collecting data from ~5 m3 crystals. This is especially true of very weakly diffracting crystals because of the significantly reduced backround achieved with a microfocused X-ray beam. The success of ID23-2 has resulted in many new and existing synchrotrons building specialized microfocus beamlines (eg. Diamond and Petra III in Europe and the SSRL and APS in the US).

ID23-2 is a fixed energy (14.20 keV, 0.873 Å) beamline that produces a focused beam of less than 10 µm in diameter (FWHM) in order to collect data from small crystals as well as complete datasets from needle crystals and other radiation sensitive crystals. The installation of a high precision EMBL-Grenoble designed MD2M diffractometer containing an X-ray beam visualization system and a specialized beamstop with cleaning aperture has also greatly facilitated the use of ID23-2 for data collection on microcrystals. Current improvements include the development of both mesh and line scans for diffraction centering as well as a helical mode of data collection to mitigate against radiation damage.

ID23-2 is run as a collaboration between the EMBL-Grenoble Synchrotron Crystallography Team and the ESRF Structural Biology Group. See the ID23-2 webpage for more information on the technical details and the ESRF website for application details.

 

References

Flot, D., Mairs, T., Giraud, T., Guijarro, M., Lesourd, M., Rey, V., van Brussel, D., Morawe, C., Borel, C., Hignette, O., Chavanne, J., Nurizzo, D., McSweeney, S., Mitchell, E. (2010) J. Synchrotron Rad. 17, 107-118.

Perrakis, A., Cipriani, F., Castagna, J. C., Claustre, L., Burghammer, M., Riekel, C., Cusack, S. (1999) Acta Crystallogr. D Biol. Crystallogr. 55, 1765-1770.

Cusack S, Belrhali H, Bram A, Burghammer M, Perrakis A, Riekel C. (1998) Nat. Struct. Biol. Suppl, 634-637.

 

Research highlights in 2009

Kang, J. Y., Nan, X., Jin, M. S., Youn, S. J., Ryu, Y. H., Mah, S., Han, S. H., Lee, H., Paik, S. G., Lee, J. O. (2009) Immunity 31, 873-884.

Morinière, J., Rousseaux, S., Steuerwald, U., Soler-López, M., Curtet, S., Vitte, A. L., Govin, J., Gaucher, J., Sadoul, K., Hart, D. J., Krijgsveld, J., Khochbin, S., Müller, C. W., Petosa, C. (2009) Nature 461, 664-668.

Zeqiraj, E., Filippi, B. M., Goldie, S., Navratilova, I., Boudeau, J., Deak, M., Alessi, D. R., van Aalten, D. M. (2009) PLoS Biol. 7, e1000126.

Harkiolaki, M., Holmes, S. L., Svendsen, P., Gregersen, J. W., Jensen, L. T., McMahon, R., Friese, M. A., van Boxel, G., Etzensperger, R., Tzartos, J. S., Kranc, K., Sainsbury, S., Harlos, K., Mellins, E. D., Palace, J., Esiri, M. M., van der Merwe, P. A., Jones, E. Y., Fugger, L. Immunity 30, 348-357.

Park, B. S., Song, D. H., Kim, H. M., Choi, B. S., Lee, H., Lee, J. O. (2009) Nature 458, 1191-1195.

Fischer, G., Kosinska-Eriksson, U., Aponte-Santamaría, C., Palmgren, M., Geijer, C., Hedfalk, K., Hohmann, S., de Groot, B. L., Neutze, R., Lindkvist-Petersson, K. (2009) PLoS Biol. 7, e1000130.

Schmelz, S., Kadi, N., McMahon, S. A., Song, L., Oves-Costales, D., Oke, M., Liu, H., Johnson, K. A., Carter, L. G., Botting, C. H., White, M. F., Challis, G. L., Naismith, J. H. (2009) Nat. Chem. Biol. 5, 174-182.