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Macromolecular Crystallography

Beamline P14

Annual Call for Proposals 2025
The call for proposals is now open to apply for beamtime between March and December 2025. Please submit your proposal via the EMBL user portal before Monday, 4th November 2024 (midnight CET).

P14 parameters

  • Beam: P14 offers micro-beam conditions with a beam size of 2 x 6 micron2 (V x H) and divergence below 0.3 mrad. For large crystals, the collimated beam with a maximum size of 300 micron can be used. Moving between collimated and microfocusing beam conditions can be controlled easily via the user interface and takes less than 20 secs. Typical crystal lifetimes are between 0.05 sec. (2 x 6 micron2 beam with 2 x 1013 ph/sec @ 12 keV) and 2 mins (300 micron beam).
  • Energy tunability: The beamline is tunable between 7 and 20 keV (1.8 Å and 0.6 Å); 26.7 keV (0.464 Å) upon request. Fluorescence spectra can be recorded with an AMPTEK silicon drift detector.
  • Diffractometer: The diffractometer is an MD3 instrument with the spindle axis mounted in a vertical and downward configuration (including a mini-kappa goniostat). This instrument has a sphere of confusion smaller than 100 nm when the mini-kappa goniostat is mounted. Three-click centring and continuous ‘4D’-scans between two centring points are available.
  • In situ data collection: Diffraction data can be collected from crystals in CrystalDirectTM plates.
  • Serial crystallography: Serial Helical Line Scans are callable from an easy-to-use user interface. Real-time filtering of diffraction images is available.
  • Detector: EIGER2 CdTe 16M (133.33 Hz, 750 Hz in 4M ROI mode in 16- or 32-bit mode; on request – 280 or 1120 Hz in 8-bit mode).
  • User interface: The user interacts with the beamline via the Hamburg version of mxCuBE v2 user interface.
  • Sample mounting: A MARVIN Sample Changer is available for automatic mounting of SPINE-pins from SPINE-pucks.
  • Data processing: 1144 core cluster is available for online data processing with XDS, EDNA fast processing and autoPROC. DIALS and XIA2 are installed.
  • Data storage and archiving: Diffraction images are stored on a fast petabyte cluster storage system in gzip-compressed mini-cbf format. Instructions on how to download your data can be found on the data backup page.
  • Structure determination: The autoRickshaw and hkl2map pipelines for structure solution are available.
  • Ancillary facilities: A lab specifically designed and equipped for preparing derivatized crystals is accessible upon request.

Typical experiments presently possible

  • Collection of native data on crystals with minimum dimension of 5 microns.
  • Collection of high-multiplicity anomalous data using different kappa settings.
  • Crystal characterization with beam sizes between 5 and 200 microns.
  • Continuous helical data collection (‘4d’-scan) on long crystals.
  • Serial crystallography (see Gati et al. (2014) IUCrJ 1:87 (OPEN ACCESS)).

How to reference P14

The use of the EMBL beamlines must be acknowledged in all publications or presentations arising from data collection at the EMBL Hamburg unit. The following note is expected to appear in the acknowledgements, giving reference to the station(s) used, supporting beamline staff or any other assistance or information as appropriate, e.g. EU contract numbers, proposal numbers.

The synchrotron data was collected at beamline operated by EMBL Hamburg at the PETRA III storage ring (DESY, Hamburg, Germany). We would like to thank N.N.** for the assistance in using the beamline.

**If appropriate, names of the beamline staff in case they are not co-authors.

Contact

Beamline Scientist
Gleb Bourenkov
Tel: +49 (0) 40 89902-120
Email: gleb@embl-hamburg.de

MX@PETRA3 coordinator
Thomas R. Schneider
Tel.:+49 (0) 40 89902-111

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