Sample delivery using capillary and delivery medium for serial crystallography

Abstract

Serial crystallography (SX) is an innovative technology in structural biology that enables the visualization of molecular dynamics of macromolecules at room temperature. SX experiments always require a considerable amount of effort to deliver a crystal sample to the X-ray interaction point continuously and reliably. Here, a sample delivery method using a capillary and a delivery medium is introduced. The crystals embedded in the delivery medium can pass through the capillary tube, which is aligned with the X-ray beam, at very low flow rates without requiring elaborate delivery techniques and drastically reducing sample consumption. This simple but highly efficient sample delivery method can allow researchers to deliver crystals precisely to X-rays in SX experiments.Keyword: serial crystallography, sample delivery, capillary, viscus medium I thank the beamline staff at 11C beamline at Pohang Accelerator Laboratory for their assistance with data collection. The authors thank Global Science experimental Data hub Center (GSDC) at Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (KISTI) for computational support.