An improved loopless mounting method for cryocrystallography

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/19/1/010601

Abstract Based on a recent loopless mounting method, a simplified loopless and bufferless crystal mounting method is developed for macromolecular crystallography. This simplified crystal mounting system is composed of the following components: a home-made glass capillary, a brass seat for holding the glass capillary, a flow regulator, and a vacuum pump for evacuation. Compared with the currently prevalent loop mounting method, this simplified method has almost the same mounting procedure and thus is compatible with the current automated crystal mounting system. The advantages of this method include higher signal-to-noise ratio, more accurate measurement, more rapid flash cooling, less x-ray absorption and thus less radiation damage to the crystal. This method can be extended to the flash-freeing of a crystal without or with soaking it in a lower concentration of cryoprotectant, thus it may be the best option for data collection in the absence of suitable cryoprotectant. Therefore, it is suggested that this mounting method should be further improved and extensively applied to cryocrystallographic experiments.

Keywords: cryoprotectant crystal mounting data collection flash cooling

Received: 24 September 2009
Revised: 22 October 2009
Accepted manuscript online:

PACS:	61.50.-f	(Structure of bulk crystals)
	07.20.Mc	(Cryogenics; refrigerators, low-temperature detectors, and other low-temperature equipment)
	61.80.-x	(Physical radiation effects, radiation damage)
	78.70.Dm	(X-ray absorption spectra)

Fund: Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundations of China (Grant No.~10674172).

Cite this article:

Qi Jian-Xun(齐建勋) and Jiang Fan(江凡) An improved loopless mounting method for cryocrystallography 2010 Chin. Phys. B 19 010601

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An improved loopless mounting method for cryocrystallography

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