Macromolecular structure solution by charge flipping

Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr. 2008 Aug;D64(Pt 8):864-73. doi: 10.1107/S0907444908017381. Epub 2008 Jul 17.

Abstract

The recently discovered charge-flipping phasing algorithm has received growing interest in small-molecule crystallography and powder diffraction. This computational methodology differs from classical direct methods as it does not require a priori knowledge of either space-group symmetry or chemical composition and does not rely on probabilistic phase relations. Here, it is shown that the charge-flipping algorithm is capable of solving large macromolecular structures with up to approximately 6000 atoms in the asymmetric unit using suitable normalized intensity data at atomic resolution ( approximately 1.0 A). Moreover, it is demonstrated that this algorithm also provides an efficient tool for the experimental phasing of highly complex heavy-atom or anomalous scattering substructures at medium to low resolution ( approximately 2-6 A) that are frequently difficult to determine using Patterson techniques or direct methods. With the present extension to macromolecular crystallography, charge flipping has proved to be a very well performing and general phase-recovery algorithm in all fields of kinematical diffraction.

Publication types

  • Evaluation Study

MeSH terms

  • Algorithms*
  • Computational Biology / methods
  • Crystallography, X-Ray*
  • Models, Molecular
  • Muramidase / chemistry

Substances

  • Muramidase