Molecular Movies using X-ray Free Electron Lasers: Recent Advances and Future Prospects

Abstract

Conventional X-ray protein crystallography captures only “static” structures due to the limitation of temporal resolution. Recently, X-ray free electron lasers（XFEL）enabled to capture dynamic structures at the atomic level with time resolutions of several tenth femtoseconds. We have been working on the development of serial femtosecond crystallography（SFX）, which is a protein structure determination technique, at SACLA and successfully obtained “molecular movies” of various proteins by combining an X-ray free electron laser with a reaction trigger. This technique is suitable for tracking fast reactions such as chemical reactions because of its high temporal resolution. We will describe current advances and future prospects of molecular movies using XFEL.