Nature Communications (Apr 2020)

Structural dynamics in proteins induced by and probed with X-ray free-electron laser pulses

  • Karol Nass,
  • Alexander Gorel,
  • Malik M. Abdullah,
  • Andrew V. Martin,
  • Marco Kloos,
  • Agostino Marinelli,
  • Andrew Aquila,
  • Thomas R. M. Barends,
  • Franz-Josef Decker,
  • R. Bruce Doak,
  • Lutz Foucar,
  • Elisabeth Hartmann,
  • Mario Hilpert,
  • Mark S. Hunter,
  • Zoltan Jurek,
  • Jason E. Koglin,
  • Alexander Kozlov,
  • Alberto A. Lutman,
  • Gabriela Nass Kovacs,
  • Christopher M. Roome,
  • Robert L. Shoeman,
  • Robin Santra,
  • Harry M. Quiney,
  • Beata Ziaja,
  • Sébastien Boutet,
  • Ilme Schlichting

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15610-4
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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The local X-ray-induced dynamics that occur in protein crystals during serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) measurements at XFELs are not well understood. Here the authors performed a time-resolved X-ray pump X-ray probe SFX experiment, and they observe distinct structural changes in the disulfide bridges and peptide backbone of proteins; complementing theoretical approaches allow them to further characterize the details of the X-ray induced ionization and local structural dynamics.