BL-11C Micro-MX: a High-Flux Microfocus Macromolecular-Crystallography Beamline for Micrometre-Sized Protein Crystals at ISSN 1600-5775 Pohang Light Source II
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beamlines BL-11C Micro-MX: a high-flux microfocus macromolecular-crystallography beamline for micrometre-sized protein crystals at ISSN 1600-5775 Pohang Light Source II Do-Heon Gu,a‡ Cheolsoo Eo,b‡ Seung-A Hwangbo,c Sung-Chul Ha,b b b b b b Received 17 December 2020 Jin Hong Kim, Hyoyun Kim, Chae-Soon Lee, In Deuk Seo, Young Duck Yun, b b b b b Accepted 22 April 2021 Woulwoo Lee, Hyeongju Choi, Jangwoo Kim, Jun Lim, Seungyu Rah, Jeong-Sun Kim,a Jie-Oh Lee,c Yeon-Gil Kimb* and Suk-Youl Parkb* Edited by R. W. Strange, University of Essex, aDepartment of Chemistry, Chonnam National University, Gwangju, Republic of Korea, bPohang Accelerator Laboratory, United Kingdom Pohang University of Science and Technology, 80 Jigokro-127-Beongil, Pohang, Nam-gu, Gyeongbuk 37673, Republic of Korea, and cInstitute of Membrane Proteins, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Pohang, Gyeongbuk 37673, ‡ These authors contributed equally to this Republic of Korea. *Correspondence e-mail: [email protected], [email protected] work. Keywords: beamlines; microfocus; BL-11C, a new protein crystallography beamline, is an in-vacuum undulator- macromolecular crystallography; protein based microfocus beamline used for macromolecular crystallography at the structures; serial crystallography. Pohang Accelerator Laboratory and it was made available to users in June 2017. The beamline is energy tunable in the range 5.0–20 keV to support conventional single- and multi-wavelength anomalous-dispersion experiments against a wide range of heavy metals. At the standard working energy of 12.659 keV, the monochromated beam is focused to 4.1 mm (V)  8.5 mm (H) full width at half- maximum at the sample position and the measured photon flux is 1.3  1012 photons sÀ1. The experimental station is equipped with a Pilatus3 6M detector, a micro-diffractometer (MD2S) incorporating a multi-axis goniometer, and a robotic sample exchanger (CATS) with a dewar capacity of 90 samples. This beamline is suitable for structural determination of weakly diffracting crystalline substances, such as biomaterials, including protein, nucleic acids and their complexes. In addition, serial crystallography experiments for determining crystal structures at room temperature are possible. Herein, the current beamline characteristics, technical information for users and some recent scientific highlights are described. 1. Introduction Macromolecular crystallography (MX) beamlines are essen- tial for structural biology investigations because the high-flux X-ray beam makes it easier to determine the structure of protein crystal samples including membrane proteins and perform a high throughput analysis for drug development (Bragg & Bragg, 1913; Bennett, 2010). The Pohang Light Source II (PLS-II) has operated two MX beamlines (BL5C and BL7A) (Park et al., 2017) because its storage ring was upgraded in 2012 (Shin et al., 2013). PLS-II currently operates at an energy of 3.0 GeV with stored currents up to 400 mA in a top-up mode (Hwang et al., 2014). To date, 1499 protein structures have been deposited in the Protein Data Bank by using data from the 5C and 7A beamlines. In 2016, over 92 research groups performed investigations using the two beamlines, including users from academic institutions and pharmaceutical companies. However, it was not possible to ensure conformance with the required beam times for all the groups because the number of users was large. Thus, to satisfy 1210 https://doi.org/10.1107/S1600577521004355 J. Synchrotron Rad. (2021). 28, 1210–1215 beamlines the user beam time requirements, we designed and Table 1 constructed a new micro-MX beamline (BL-11C), which was Beamline details. made available to general users in June 2017. Beamline name 11C Micro-MX Based on the strong demand from the Korean MX Source type In-vacuum undulator 20 (1.4 m short, 20 mm period) community, BL-11C was designed for micro-crystallography Monochromator Si(111) DCM with a default full beam size of less than 10 mm. The main Energy range 5.0–20 keV, user controlled optics of the beamline contain a double-crystal mono- Mirror Elliptical KB mirror Beam divergence at 1 (V), 1.5 (H) chromator (DCM) and a Kirkpatrick–Baez (KB) type sample position (mrad) focusing mirror, as well as a Pilatus3 6M detector for shut- Beam flux 1.3  1012 photons sÀ1 terless data collection. To increase the efficiency of data Beam size (FWHM) 4.1 mm(V) 8.5 mm(H)† Energy resolution (ÁE/E)2 10À4 collection, an automatic mounting and remote system was Detector Pilatus3 6M from Dectris adopted. Furthermore, to use the 11C micro-focused beam Goniometer MD2S diffractometer from Arinax at its full potential, synchrotron serial crystallography (SSX) m  m was introduced for the observations on protein dynamics † Theoretical specification for minimum beam size = 1.75 m (V) 11 m (H). and physiological structure determination with a minimized radiation damage (Wierman et al., 2019; de la Mora et al., 2020). window separates a vacuum status between the front-end and Thus, this beamline is optimized for structural determina- the optical hutch, which is visualized by a Basler acA1300- tion by traditional crystallography and serial crystallography. 30gm GigE monochrome camera (Basler AG, Ahrensburg, This article describes the performances and functionalities of Germany) via a web browser. The maximum brilliance of the the BL-11C beamline to overseas users as well as Korean undulator source from the camera image was understood to be users. a coherent core of the radiation. The polychromatic beam is monochromated by an Si(111) DCM, which is cryogenically cooled by a liquid-nitrogen cryo-cooler system (Oxford 2. Beamline overview Instruments, UK). The monochromator was designed for The 11C beamline is illuminated by a hybrid and asymmetric automated energy changes, which are available for single- or type in-vacuum 1.4 m-long undulator with a periodicity of multi-wavelength anomalous-diffraction experiments from 20 mm and a minimum operational gap of 12 mm (Table 1). 5.0–20 keV by using various metals as well as seleno-methio- There are three segments: a front-end for the undulator nine. source; an optical hutch for the DCM, pre-horizontal focusing The monochromator-derived mono-beam is focused in the mirror (pre-HFM) and JJ slit; and an experimental hutch for horizontal direction by two figured elliptical mirrors, whereas the KB mirrors, goniometer, detector and sample changer. in the vertical direction, the beam is focused by one figured The optical layout of the 11C beamline is shown schematically elliptical mirror. The KB mirrors are coated with rhodium and in Fig. 1. platinum on the mirror surface in halves. Since all the mirrors on this beamline are pre-figured and do not have benders, the beam size is fixed. 2.1. Beamline layout and optics The mono-beam is first focused at a JJ slit (JJ X-Ray, The white beam from the undulator source passes through a Denmark) by the first horizontal mirror (pre-HFM) located fixed mask, a one-dimensional photon-beam position monitor in the optics hutch. Then, the horizontally focused beam is (PBPM), a movable mask which reduces the heat load of the diverged as a virtual source for the second focusing KB mirror downstream optical components and a 200 mm-thick chemical in an endstation. Ray-tracing using SHADOW (Sanchez del vapor deposition water-cooled diamond window. The diamond Rio & Dejus, 2004) calculated that the minimum beam size at Figure 1 A schematic layout of the 11C Micro-MX beamline. The components are an in-vacuum undulator insertion-device source (ID), a front-end moveable slit (FE slit), a DCM, the first HFM, a horizontal slit as a virtual source, and the second focusing vertical and horizontal mirrors as KB mirrors. The total distance is 29 m from the source to the sample point. J. Synchrotron Rad. (2021). 28, 1210–1215 Do-Heon Gu et al. BL-11C Micro-MX at Pohang Light Source II 1211 beamlines Figure 2 (a) Measured vertical and horizontal profiles of the micro-focused beam obtained using a knife-edge-scan setup giving a focus beam 4.1 mm (V)  8.5 mm (H) in size. The red rhombuses are the measured data whereas the solid lines are the fitted Gaussian profiles. The data were collected with 1012 photons sÀ1 at a photon energy of 12.659 keV. (b) The 11C Micro-MX experimental hutch showing a six-axis robot arm, an MD2S diffractometer and a Pilatus3 6M detector. the sample position is 1.75 mm (V)  11 mm (H) with 1  position monitor (QBPM) (FMB Oxford, UK) was installed to 1012 photons sÀ1 flux based on 12.6 keV and 350 mA storage- measure beam intensity and position. ring current. After completion of the beamline construction, the measured full beam size was 4.1 mm (V)  8.5 mm (H) with 2.2. Experimental setups 1.3  1012 photons sÀ1 flux at the same energy and current as above [Fig. 2(a)]. The beam size is different from the calcu- The endstation is equipped with an MD2S diffractometer lated value but it is usable for collecting data from very small (ARINAX, France) with an on-axis crystal-visualization crystals up to 5 mm in the smallest dimension. As the micro- system, a Pilatus 6M detector (DECTRIS, Swiss), an Si-PIN beam is sensitive to external factors of the photon transfer photodiode detector XR-100CR (Amptek, USA) for anom- line, considerable attention has been given to constructing a alous-diffraction experiments using X-ray absorption near- rigid support, removing vibration sources and thermal effects, edge structure (XANES) analysis and fluorescence measure- and monitoring the beam position.