An acoustic on-chip goniometer for room temperature macromolecular crystallography

Abstract

This paper describes the design, development and successful use of an on-chip goniometer for room-temperature macromolecular crystallography via acoustically induced rotations. We present for the first time a low cost, rate-tunable, acoustic actuator for gradual in-fluid sample reorientation about varying axes and its utilisation for protein structure determination on a synchrotron beamline. The device enables the efficient collection of diffraction data via a rotation method from a sample within a surface confined droplet. This method facilitates efficient macromolecular structural data acquisition in fluid environments for dynamical studies.

Non-Contact Universal Sample Presentation for Room Temperature Macromolecular Crystallography Using Acoustic Levitation

“…The success of this transfer has even inspired dedicated serial MX beamlines at PETRA 11 , Germany, at MAX IV 12 , Sweden, and also at ESRF, France 13 , allowing for novel sample delivery and alignment methods to be explored, although some of these techniques introduce physical non-sample materials into the path of the beamline. Surface acoustic wave techniques have also been shown to be useful to present room temperature MX samples to the X-ray beam at both synchrotron and XFEL sources and have been shown to be non-destructive in respect to protein crystals 14,15 .…”