Neutron macromolecular crystallography

作者：Blakeley M P^*

来源：Crystallography Reviews, 2009, 15(3): 157-218.

DOI：10.1080/08893110902965003

• bound solvent
• deuterium
• deuteron
• hydrogen
• joint X-ray and neutron refinement
• macromolecule
• neutron image plate
• nucleic acid
• perdeuteration
• proton
• protonation-state
• protein
• quasi-Laue
• reactor source
• single crystal
• spallation source
• time-of-flight Laue

Neutron crystallography allows direct determination of the proton and deuteron positions of a macromolecule and its bound solvent. Key advances in neutron macromolecular crystallography have led to an expanding field addressing larger and more complex problems. In particular, improvements in neutron instrumentation, detection systems, data collection methods and perdeuterated sample preparation have dramatically lowered the sample volume requirements to similar to 0.1-0.2 mm(3) and data collection times to just a few days. This trend towards the study of larger systems using smaller samples is set to continue with instrumentation being built at new sources and upgrades being made to existing instrumentation. These developments make it desirable to summarize the current status of neutron macromolecular crystallography and offer some perspectives for the future. In addition, using examples of the neutron structures determined so far, I will present the wealth of information that can be gained from such studies and illustrate how this can be vital towards understanding macromolecular function and behaviour.

• 出版日期2009