New detector accelerates protein crystallography
60s on the new detector were sufficient to obtain the electron density of the PETase enzyme. © HZB
The MX-beamline 14.1 has been upgraded with a new, better, faster and more sensitive PILATUS-detector.
© HZB
Last week a new detector was installed at one of the three MX beamlines at HZB. Compared to the old detector the new one is better, faster and more sensitive. It allows to acquire complete data sets of complex proteins within a very short time.
Proteins consist of thousands of building blocks that can form complex architectures with folded or entangled regions. However, their shape plays a decisive role in the function of the protein in the organism. Using macromolecular crystallography at BESSY II, it is possible to decipher the architecture of protein molecules. For this purpose, tiny protein crystals are irradiated with X-ray light from the synchrotron source BESSY II. From the obtained diffraction patterns, the morphology of the molecules can be calculated.
Now the MX team at BESSY II has put a new detector into operation at the MX beamline 14.1, which works about 2 to 3 times faster than before. The team analysed a crystal from the enzyme PETase as a sample. PETase does partially degrade the plastic PET. In less than a minute, the detector was able to record a complete diffraction data set, which includes data from an angular range of 180 degrees. The data set consists of 1200 images, each of which was exposed to X-rays for 45 milliseconds. "The resulting electron density was of excellent quality and showed all structural features of the enzyme," explains Dr. Manfred Weiss, who leads the MX team at BESSY II.
The success of the HZB MX beamlines is documented by more than 3000 PDB entries from experimental beamtime from more than a hundred international user groups from academia and pharmaceutical research companies.
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Prof. Dr. Tali Mass, a marine biologist from the University of Haifa, Israel, is an expert on stony corals. Together with Prof. Dr. Paul Zaslansky, X-ray imaging expert from Charité Berlin, she investigated at BESSY II the skeleton formation in baby corals, raised under different pH conditions. Antonia Rötger spoke online with the two experts about the results of their recent study and the future of coral reefs.
- Long-term stability for perovskite solar cells: a big step forwardPerovskite solar cells are inexpensive to produce and generate a high amount of electric power per surface area. However, they are not yet stable enough, losing efficiency more rapidly than the silicon market standard. Now, an international team led by Prof. Dr. Antonio Abate has dramatically increased their stability by applying a novel coating to the interface between the surface of the perovskite and the top contact layer. This has even boosted efficiency to almost 27%, which represents the state-of-the-art. After 1,200 hours of continuous operation under standard illumination, no decrease in efficiency was observed. The study involved research teams from China, Italy, Switzerland and Germany and has been published in Nature Photonics.