title: Current advances in synchrotron radiation instrumentation for MX experiments.
abstract: Following pioneering work 40 years ago, synchrotron beamlines dedicated to macromolecular crystallography (MX) have improved in almost every aspect as instrumentation has evolved. Beam sizes and crystal dimensions are now on the single micron scale while data can be collected from proteins with molecular weights over 10 MDa and from crystals with unit cell dimensions over 1000 Å. Furthermore it is possible to collect a complete data set in seconds, and obtain the resulting structure in minutes. The impact of MX synchrotron beamlines and their evolution is reflected in their scientific output, and MX is now the method of choice for a variety of aims from ligand binding to structure determination of membrane proteins, viruses and ribosomes, resulting in a much deeper understanding of the machinery of life. A main driving force of beamline evolution have been advances in almost every aspect of the instrumentation comprising a synchrotron beamline. In this review we aim to provide an overview of the current status of instrumentation at modern MX experiments. The most critical optical components are discussed, as are aspects of endstation design, sample delivery, visualisation and positioning, the sample environment, beam shaping, detectors and data acquisition and processing.
authors.affiliation: Diamond Light Source, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, OX11 0DE, UK. Electronic address: robin.owen@diamond.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Robin L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Owen
authors.affiliation: Alba Synchrotron, Carrer de la llum 2-26, Cerdanyola, 08192, Spain. Electronic address: juanhuix@cells.es.
authors.forename: Jordi
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Juanhuix
authors.affiliation: National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven National Lab, Upton, NY, 11973, USA. Electronic address: mfuchs@bnl.gov.
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Fuchs
mesh_terms: D003460:Crystallization / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000639:trends; D003461:Crystallography / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000639:trends; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D046912:Multiprotein Complexes / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000648:ultrastructure*; D017356:Synchrotrons / Q000295:instrumentation*
chemical_list: D046912:Multiprotein Complexes
keywords: Beamline instrumentation; Experimental methods; Macromolecular crystallography; Review; Synchrotron radiation; X-ray diffraction