Protein crystallography with spallation neutrons: collecting and processing wavelength-resolved Laue protein data

The protein crystallography station at Los Alamos Neutron Science Center is the first to be built at a spallation neutron source. Time-of-flight methods in combination with a large electronic position-sensitive and time-sensitive detector are used in order to collect wavelength-resolved Laue diffraction data. The wavelength-resolved Laue technique is new to protein crystallography and has required the development of new strategies for data collection and data analysis. The software suite d*TREK has been adapted and used in combination with the Daresbury Laue software suite, the instrument control software PCS-GUI, and the graphics program O, for data collection and processing in the protein crystallography station wavelength-resolved Laue environment. Examples are given, as typical, for data processing from rubredoxin, insulin and D-xylose isomerase with unit cells ranging from 34.32 × 35.31 × 44.23 Å to 93.78 × 88.53 × 102.90 Å, thus illustrating the power of the instrument and the scope of the instrument software.