Scientists investigate tiny protein crystals with synchrotron radiation
At DESY, scientists from the Center for Free-Electron Laser Science (CFEL), the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) and the universities of Hamburg and Lübeck created new analysis possibilities for delicate biomolecules. At the X-ray source PETRA III, the scientists X-rayed micrometre-sized crystals of a key enzyme involved in sleeping sickness, thereby determining its atomic structure. The obtained structural data correspond to earlier analyses of the same enzyme at the world's most powerful X-ray laser in Stanford (US). "Since only a few of these valuable crystals are needed, this method opens up new possibilities for the structural analysis of biomolecules," said CFEL scientist Cornelius Gati, lead author of a research study which describes this new method in IUCrJ, the high-profile scientific journal of the International Union of Crystallography.