Identifying and avoiding radiation damage in macromolecular crystallography

Acta Crystallogr D Struct Biol. 2024 May 1;80(Pt 5):314-327. doi: 10.1107/S2059798324003243. Epub 2024 Apr 30.

Abstract

Radiation damage remains one of the major impediments to accurate structure solution in macromolecular crystallography. The artefacts of radiation damage can manifest as structural changes that result in incorrect biological interpretations being drawn from a model, they can reduce the resolution to which data can be collected and they can even prevent structure solution entirely. In this article, we discuss how to identify and mitigate against the effects of radiation damage at each stage in the macromolecular crystal structure-solution pipeline.

Keywords: Bnet; Bnet-percentile; global damage; radiation damage; specific damage.

MeSH terms

  • Crystallography, X-Ray / methods
  • Macromolecular Substances* / chemistry
  • Models, Molecular
  • Proteins / chemistry

Substances

  • Macromolecular Substances
  • Proteins