The serial millisecond crystallography instrument at the Australian Synchrotron incorporating the "Lipidico" injector

P Berntsen; M Hadian Jazi; M Kusel; A V Martin; T Ericsson; M J Call; R Trenker; F G Roque; C Darmanin; B Abbey

doi:10.1063/1.5104298

The serial millisecond crystallography instrument at the Australian Synchrotron incorporating the "Lipidico" injector

Rev Sci Instrum. 2019 Aug;90(8):085110. doi: 10.1063/1.5104298.

Authors

P Berntsen¹, M Hadian Jazi¹, M Kusel², A V Martin³, T Ericsson⁴, M J Call⁵, R Trenker⁵, F G Roque¹, C Darmanin¹, B Abbey¹

Affiliations

¹ Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Advanced Molecular Imaging, Department of Chemistry and Physics, La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science, La Trobe University, Melbourne 3086, Australia.
² Kusel Design, 12 Coghlan Street, Niddrie, VIC 3042, Australia.
³ School of Science, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3000, Australia.
⁴ Department of Mathematical Sciences, Chalmers University of Technology, and The University of Gothenburg, 412 96 Göteborg, Sweden.
⁵ Structural Biology Division, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, 1G Royal Parade, Parkville, Victoria 3052, Australia.

PMID: 31472610
DOI: 10.1063/1.5104298

Abstract

A serial millisecond crystallography (SMX) facility has recently been implemented at the macromolecular crystallography beamline, MX2 at the Australian Synchrotron. The setup utilizes a combination of an EIGER X 16M detector system and an in-house developed high-viscosity injector, "Lipidico." Lipidico uses a syringe needle to extrude the microcrystal-containing viscous media and it is compatible with commercially available syringes. The combination of sample delivery via protein crystals suspended in a viscous mixture and a millisecond frame rate detector enables high-throughput serial crystallography at the Australian Synchrotron. A hit-finding algorithm, based on the principles of "robust-statistics," is employed to rapidly process the data. Here we present the first SMX experimental results with a detector frame rate of 100 Hz (10 ms exposures) and the Lipidico injector using a mixture of lysozyme microcrystals embedded in high vacuum silicon grease. Details of the experimental setup, sample injector, and data analysis pipeline are designed and developed as part of the Australian Synchrotron SMX instrument and are reviewed here.