Improving High Viscosity Extrusion of Microcrystals for Time-resolved Serial Femtosecond Crystallography at X-ray LasersDaniel James 1, Tobias Weinert 1, Petr Skopintsev 1, Antonia Furrer 1, Dardan Gashi 1,2, Tomoyuki Tanaka 3,4, Eriko Nango 3,4, Przemyslaw Nogly 1,5, Joerg Standfuss 1
1Division of Biology and Chemistry - Laboratory for Biomolecular Research, Paul Scherrer Institut, 2Photon Science Division - SwissFEL, Paul Scherrer Institut, 3RIKEN SPring-8 Center, 4Department of Cell Biology, Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto University, 5Department of Biology, ETH Zürich
The success of a time-resolved serial femtosecond crystallography experiment is dependent on efficient sample delivery. Here, we describe protocols to optimize the extrusion of bacteriorhodopsin microcrystals from a high viscosity micro-extrusion injector. The methodology relies on sample homogenization with a novel three-way coupler and visualization with a high-speed camera.
