| 1. |
- Ryan, Rebecca A., et al.
(författare)
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Measurements of Long-range Electronic Correlations During Femtosecond Diffraction Experiments Performed on Nanocrystals of Buckminsterfullerene
- 2017
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Ingår i: Journal of Visualized Experiments. - : MyJove Corporation. - 1940-087X. ; :126
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The precise details of the interaction of intense X-ray pulses with matter are a topic of intense interest to researchers attempting to interpret the results of femtosecond X-ray free electron laser (XFEL) experiments. An increasing number of experimental observations have shown that although nuclear motion can be negligible, given a short enough incident pulse duration, electronic motion cannot be ignored. The current and widely accepted models assume that although electrons undergo dynamics driven by interaction with the pulse, their motion could largely be considered 'random'. This would then allow the supposedly incoherent contribution from the electronic motion to be treated as a continuous background signal and thus ignored. The original aim of our experiment was to precisely measure the change in intensity of individual Bragg peaks, due to X-ray induced electronic damage in a model system, crystalline C-60. Contrary to this expectation, we observed that at the highest X-ray intensities, the electron dynamics in C-60 were in fact highly correlated, and over sufficiently long distances that the positions of the Bragg reflections are significantly altered. This paper describes in detail the methods and protocols used for these experiments, which were conducted both at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) and the Australian Synchrotron (AS) as well as the crystallographic approaches used to analyse the data.
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| 2. |
- Beyerlein, Kenneth, et al.
(författare)
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Ultrafast non-thermal heating of water initiated by an X-ray laser
- 2018
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Ingår i: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. - : Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. - 0027-8424 .- 1091-6490. ; 115:22, s. 5652-5657
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- X-ray Free-Electron Lasers have opened the door to a new era in structural biology, enabling imaging of biomolecules and dynamics that were impossible to access with conventional methods. A vast majority of imaging experiments, including Serial Femtosecond Crystallography, use a liquid jet to deliver the sample into the interaction region. We have observed structural changes in the carrying water during X-ray exposure, showing how it transforms from the liquid phase to a plasma. This ultrafast phase transition observed in water provides evidence that any biological structure exposed to these X-ray pulses is destroyed during the X-ray exposure.The bright ultrafast pulses of X-ray Free-Electron Lasers allow investigation into the structure of matter under extreme conditions. We have used single pulses to ionize and probe water as it undergoes a phase transition from liquid to plasma. We report changes in the structure of liquid water on a femtosecond time scale when irradiated by single 6.86 keV X-ray pulses of more than 106 J/cm2. These observations are supported by simulations based on molecular dynamics and plasma dynamics of a water system that is rapidly ionized and driven out of equilibrium. This exotic ionic and disordered state with the density of a liquid is suggested to be structurally different from a neutral thermally disordered state.
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| 3. |
- Brändén, Gisela, 1975, et al.
(författare)
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Coherent diffractive imaging of microtubules using an X-ray laser.
- 2019
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Ingår i: Nature communications. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 2041-1723. ; 10:1
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- X-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) create new possibilities for structural studies of biological objects that extend beyond what is possible with synchrotron radiation. Serial femtosecond crystallography has allowed high-resolution structures to be determined from micro-meter sized crystals, whereas single particle coherent X-ray imaging requires development to extend the resolution beyond a few tens of nanometers. Here we describe an intermediate approach: the XFEL imaging of biological assemblies with helical symmetry. We collected X-ray scattering images from samples of microtubules injected across an XFEL beam using a liquid microjet, sorted these images into class averages, merged these data into a diffraction pattern extending to 2nm resolution, and reconstructed these data into a projection image of the microtubule. Details such as the 4nm tubulin monomer became visible in this reconstruction. These results illustrate the potential of single-molecule X-ray imaging of biological assembles with helical symmetry at room temperature.
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| 4. |
- Daurer, Benedikt J., et al.
(författare)
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Experimental strategies for imaging bioparticles with femtosecond hard X-ray pulses
- 2017
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Ingår i: IUCrJ. - : INT UNION CRYSTALLOGRAPHY. - 2052-2525. ; 4, s. 251-262
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This study explores the capabilities of the Coherent X-ray Imaging Instrument at the Linac Coherent Light Source to image small biological samples. The weak signal from small samples puts a significant demand on the experiment. Aerosolized Omono River virus particles of similar to 40 nm in diameter were injected into the submicrometre X-ray focus at a reduced pressure. Diffraction patterns were recorded on two area detectors. The statistical nature of the measurements from many individual particles provided information about the intensity profile of the X-ray beam, phase variations in the wavefront and the size distribution of the injected particles. The results point to a wider than expected size distribution (from similar to 35 to similar to 300 nm in diameter). This is likely to be owing to nonvolatile contaminants from larger droplets during aerosolization and droplet evaporation. The results suggest that the concentration of nonvolatile contaminants and the ratio between the volumes of the initial droplet and the sample particles is critical in such studies. The maximum beam intensity in the focus was found to be 1.9 * 10(12) photons per mu m(2) per pulse. The full-width of the focus at half-maximum was estimated to be 500 nm (assuming 20% beamline transmission), and this width is larger than expected. Under these conditions, the diffraction signal from a sample-sized particle remained above the average background to a resolution of 4.25 nm. The results suggest that reducing the size of the initial droplets during aerosolization is necessary to bring small particles into the scope of detailed structural studies with X-ray lasers.
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| 5. |
- Dods, Robert, 1989, et al.
(författare)
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From Macrocrystals to Microcrystals: A Strategy for Membrane Protein Serial Crystallography.
- 2017
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Ingår i: Structure. - : Elsevier BV. - 1878-4186 .- 0969-2126. ; 25:9, s. 1461-1468
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Serial protein crystallography was developed at X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) and is now also being applied at storage ring facilities. Robust strategies for the growth and optimization of microcrystals are needed to advance the field. Here we illustrate a generic strategy for recovering high-density homogeneous samples of microcrystals starting from conditions known to yield large (macro) crystals of the photosynthetic reaction center of Blastochloris viridis (RCvir). We first crushed these crystals prior to multiple rounds of microseeding. Each cycle of microseeding facilitated improvements in the RCvir serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX) structure from 3.3-Å to 2.4-Å resolution. This approach may allow known crystallization conditions for other proteins to be adapted to exploit novel scientific opportunities created by serial crystallography.
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| 6. |
- Gorkhover, Tais, et al.
(författare)
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Femtosecond X-ray Fourier holography imaging of free-flying nanoparticles
- 2018
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Ingår i: Nature Photonics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1749-4885 .- 1749-4893. ; 12:3, s. 150-153
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Ultrafast X-ray imaging on individual fragile specimens such as aerosols 1 , metastable particles 2 , superfluid quantum systems 3 and live biospecimens 4 provides high-resolution information that is inaccessible with conventional imaging techniques. Coherent X-ray diffractive imaging, however, suffers from intrinsic loss of phase, and therefore structure recovery is often complicated and not always uniquely defined 4,5 . Here, we introduce the method of in-flight holography, where we use nanoclusters as reference X-ray scatterers to encode relative phase information into diffraction patterns of a virus. The resulting hologram contains an unambiguous three-dimensional map of a virus and two nanoclusters with the highest lateral resolution so far achieved via single shot X-ray holography. Our approach unlocks the benefits of holography for ultrafast X-ray imaging of nanoscale, non-periodic systems and paves the way to direct observation of complex electron dynamics down to the attosecond timescale.
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| 7. |
- Kenna, Kevin P., et al.
(författare)
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NEK1 variants confer susceptibility to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- 2016
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Ingår i: Nature Genetics. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1061-4036 .- 1546-1718. ; 48:9, s. 1037-1042
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To identify genetic factors contributing to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), we conducted whole-exome analyses of 1,022 index familial ALS (FALS) cases and 7,315 controls. In a new screening strategy, we performed gene-burden analyses trained with established ALS genes and identified a significant association between loss-of-function (LOF) NEK1 variants and FALS risk. Independently, autozygosity mapping for an isolated community in the Netherlands identified a NEK1 p.Arg261 His variant as a candidate risk factor. Replication analyses of sporadic ALS (SALS) cases and independent control cohorts confirmed significant disease association for both p.Arg261 His (10,589 samples analyzed) and NEK1 LOF variants (3,362 samples analyzed). In total, we observed NEK1 risk variants in nearly 3% of ALS cases. NEK1 has been linked to several cellular functions, including cilia formation, DNA-damage response, microtubule stability, neuronal morphology and axonal polarity. Our results provide new and important insights into ALS etiopathogenesis and genetic etiology.
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| 8. |
- Kurta, Ruslan P., et al.
(författare)
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Correlations in Scattered X-Ray Laser Pulses Reveal Nanoscale Structural Features of Viruses
- 2017
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Ingår i: Physical Review Letters. - : American Physical Society. - 0031-9007 .- 1079-7114. ; 119:15
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We use extremely bright and ultrashort pulses from an x-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) to measure correlations in x rays scattered from individual bioparticles. This allows us to go beyond the traditional crystallography and single-particle imaging approaches for structure investigations. We employ angular correlations to recover the three-dimensional (3D) structure of nanoscale viruses from x-ray diffraction data measured at the Linac Coherent Light Source. Correlations provide us with a comprehensive structural fingerprint of a 3D virus, which we use both for model-based and ab initio structure recovery. The analyses reveal a clear indication that the structure of the viruses deviates from the expected perfect icosahedral symmetry. Our results anticipate exciting opportunities for XFEL studies of the structure and dynamics of nanoscale objects by means of angular correlations.
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| 9. |
- Laksmono, Hartawan, et al.
(författare)
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Anomalous Behavior of the Homogeneous Ice Nucleation Rate in No-Man's Land
- 2015
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Ingår i: Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. - : American Chemical Society (ACS). - 1948-7185 .- 1948-7185. ; 6:14, s. 2826-2832
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We present an analysis of ice nucleation kinetics from near-ambient pressure water as temperature decreases below the homogeneous limit T-H by cooling micrometer-sized droplets (microdroplets) evaporatively at 10(3)-10(4) K/s and probing the structure ultrafast using femtosecond pulses from the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) free-electron X-ray laser. Below 232 K, we observed a slower nucleation rate increase with decreasing temperature than anticipated from previous measurements, which we suggest is due to the rapid decrease in water's diffusivity. This is consistent with earlier findings that microdroplets do not crystallize at <227 K, but vitrify at cooling rates of 10(6)-10(7) K/s. We also hypothesize that the slower increase in the nucleation rate is connected with the proposed fragile-to-strong transition anomaly in water.
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| 10. |
- Lundholm, Ida V., et al.
(författare)
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Considerations for three-dimensional image reconstruction from experimental data in coherent diffractive imaging
- 2018
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Ingår i: IUCrJ. - : International Union of Crystallography. - 2052-2525. ; 5, s. 531-541
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Diffraction before destruction using X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) has the potential to determine radiation-damage-free structures without the need for crystallization. This article presents the three-dimensional reconstruction of the Melbournevirus from single-particle X-ray diffraction patterns collected at the LINAC Coherent Light Source (LCLS) as well as reconstructions from simulated data exploring the consequences of different kinds of experimental sources of noise. The reconstruction from experimental data suffers from a strong artifact in the center of the particle. This could be reproduced with simulated data by adding experimental background to the diffraction patterns. In those simulations, the relative density of the artifact increases linearly with background strength. This suggests that the artifact originates from the Fourier transform of the relatively flat background, concentrating all power in a central feature of limited extent. We support these findings by significantly reducing the artifact through background removal before the phase-retrieval step. Large amounts of blurring in the diffraction patterns were also found to introduce diffuse artifacts, which could easily be mistaken as biologically relevant features. Other sources of noise such as sample heterogeneity and variation of pulse energy did not significantly degrade the quality of the reconstructions. Larger data volumes, made possible by the recent inauguration of high repetition-rate XFELs, allow for increased signal-to-background ratio and provide a way to minimize these artifacts. The anticipated development of three-dimensional Fourier-volume-assembly algorithms which are background aware is an alternative and complementary solution, which maximizes the use of data.
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