open access

https://hdl.handle.net/2115/80381

Design of a liquid cell toward three-dimensional imaging of unidirectionally-aligned particles in solution using X-ray free-electron lasers

英語

2020-02-07

Royal Society of Chemistry

Physical chemistry chemical physics

22(5)

2622-2628

X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) opened up a possibility for molecular-scale single particle imaging (SPI) without the need for crystallization. In SPI experiments, the orientation of each particle has to be determined from the measured diffraction pattern. Preparing unidirectionally-aligned particles can facilitate the determination of the sample orientation. Here, we show the design principles of a liquid cell for three-dimensional imaging of unidirectionally-aligned particles in solution with XFELs. The liquid cell was designed so that neither incident X-rays nor diffracted X-rays are blocked by the substrate of the liquid cell even at high tilt angles. As a feasibility evaluation, we performed coherent diffraction measurements using the cells with a 1 mm focused XFEL beam. We successfully measured coherent diffraction patterns of a nano-fabricated metal pattern at 701 tilt angle and obtained the reconstructed image by applying iterative phase retrieval. The liquid cell will be usefully applied to molecular-scale SPI by using more tightly focused XFELs. In particular, imaging of membrane proteins embedded in lipid membranes is expected to have an enormous impact on life science and medicine.

学術雑誌論文

Accepted Manuscript

1463-9076