Laue film integration and deconvolution of spatially overlapping reflections

Single-crystal synchrotron-radiation Laue photographs of protein crystals and viruses are densely populated and a considerable amount of spatial overlapping of spots often occurs on the films. An integration procedure which enables the efficient deconvolution of these spots in order to obtain their integrated intensity has been developed and implemented. Some results are given for glycogen phosphorylase b and tomato bushy stunt virus. A comparative study of reflections overlapped on one exposure and separated on another, taken from the same crystal at a longer crystal-to-film distance, gives merging statistics comparable to those from the treatment of spatially separated spots only. In all cases the majority of the spatially overlapped data is made available for subsequent analyses.