X06DA - PXIII : Macromolecular Crystallography

Latest news

X06DA (PXIII) will close on April 11, 2022 for a 1 year upgrade.
Ongoing proposals will be moved to X06SA (PXI).

A Versatile Beamline for Macromolecular Crystallography

X06DA (PXIII) is the third macromolecular crystallography beamline at the Swiss Light Source. It was funded by a partnership between the Paul Scherrer Institut and Swiss and international pharmaceutical companies. The beamline receives light from a 2.9 T superbend magnet. The optical design results in a sub 90 microns x 45 microns focused beam at the sample position with a total photon flux comparable to an undulator beamline. With both the PILATUS 2M-F detector and the multi-axis PRIGo goniometer, the setup is well suited for experimental phasing experiments, in particular native SAD. The experimental station offers both efficient manual mounting with a mini-hutch design and automatic robotic sample mounting.

Beamline Characteristics

Wavelength range (Å)	0.71 - 2.25
Spectral range (keV)	5.5 - 17.5
Energy resolution	1.4 x 10^-4
Flux at 12.4 keV at 400mA (ph/s)	5 x 10¹¹
Focused spot size h x v (μm)	90 x 45
Detector	PILATUS 2M-F
Endstation	Mini-hutch (fast manual mounting), multi-axis PRIGo goniometer, sample changer CATS

Beamline Features

A Phasing Beamline

Challenging structures solved by native SAD phasing, including both the large 266-kDa multiprotein/multiligand tubulin complex (Weinert et al, 2015, Nature Methods) and a 200-kDa Cas9–RNA–DNA complex (Olieric et al, 2016, ActaD)
Multi-orientation data collection with the PRIGo goniometer (Waltersperger et al, 2015, JSR)
Fast high multiplicity with PILATUS 2M-F detector
Advanced energy interleaved-MAD protocols (Finke et al, 2016, MiMB)