We introduce the spitrobot, a protein crystal plunger, enabling reaction quenching via cryo-trapping with a time-resolution in the millisecond range. Protein crystals are mounted on canonical micromeshes on an electropneumatic piston, where the crystals are kept in a humidity and temperature-controlled environment, then reactions are initiated via the liquid application method (LAMA) and plunging into liquid nitrogen is initiated after an electronically set delay time to cryo-trap intermediate states. High-magnification images are automatically recorded before and after droplet deposition, prior to plunging. The SPINE-standard sample holder is directly plunged into a storage puck, enabling compatibility with high-throughput infrastructure. Here we demonstrate binding of glucose and 2,3-butanediol in microcrystals of xylose isomerase, and of avibactam and ampicillin in microcrystals of the extended spectrum beta-lactamase CTX-M-14. We also trap reaction intermediates and conformational changes in macroscopic crystals of tryptophan synthase to demonstrate that the spitrobot enables insight into catalytic events.
We present a new environmental enclosure for fixed-target, serial crystallography enabling full control of both the temperature and humidity. While maintaining the relative humidity to within a percent, this enclosure provides access to X-ray diffraction experiments in a wide temperature range from below 10 °C to above 80 °C. Coupled with the LAMA method, time-resolved serial crystallography experiments can now be carried out at truly physiological temperatures, providing fundamentally new insight into protein function. Using the hyperthermophile enzyme xylose isomerase, we demonstrate changes in the electron density as a function of increasing temperature and time. This method provides the necessary tools to successfully carry out multi-dimensional serial crystallography.
Liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy is a technique for simultaneous imaging of the structure and dynamics of specimens in a liquid environment. The conventional sample geometry consists of a liquid layer tightly sandwiched between two Si3N4 windows with a nominal spacing on the order of 0.5 μm. We describe a variation of the conventional approach, wherein the Si3N4 windows are separated by a 10-μm-thick spacer, thus providing room for gas flow inside the liquid specimen enclosure. Adjusting the pressure and flow speed of humid air inside this environmental liquid cell (ELC) creates a stable liquid layer of controllable thickness on the bottom window, thus facilitating high-resolution observations of low mass-thickness contrast objects at low electron doses. We demonstrate controllable liquid thicknesses in the range 160 ± 34 to 340 ± 71 nm resulting in corresponding edge resolutions of 0.8 ± 0.06 to 1.7 ± 0.8 nm as measured for immersed gold nanoparticles. Liquid layer thickness 40 ± 8 nm allowed imaging of low-contrast polystyrene particles. Hydration effects in the ELC have been studied using poly-N-isopropylacrylamide nanogels with a silica core. Therefore, ELC can be a suitable tool for in situ investigations of liquid specimens.
We introduce the spitrobot, a protein crystal plunger, enabling reaction quenching via cryo-trapping with millisecond time-resolution. Canonical micromesh loops are mounted on an electropneumatic piston, reactions are initiated via the liquid application method (LAMA), and finally intermediate states are cryo-trapped in liquid nitrogen. We demonstrate binding of several ligands in microcrystals of three enzymes, and trapping of reaction intermediates and conformational changes in macroscopic crystals of tryptophan synthase.
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