Merging of electron-diffraction intensities acquired with a slow-scan CCD camera of crotoxin complex crystals to 3.5Å resolution

Abstract

Crotoxin complex is the principal neurotoxin of the South American rattlesnake, Crotalus durissus terrificus and has a molecular weight of 24 kDa. The protein is a heterodimer with subunit A assigneda chaperone function. Subunit B carries the lethal activity, which is exerted on both sides ofthe neuro-muscular junction, and which is thought to involve binding to the acetylcholine receptor. Insight in crotoxin complex’ mode of action can be gained from a 3 Å resolution structure obtained by electron crystallography. This abstract communicates our progress in merging the electron diffraction amplitudes into a 3-dimensional (3D) intensity data set close to completion. Since the thickness of crotoxin complex crystals varies from one crystal to the other, we chose to collect tilt series of electron diffraction patterns after determining their thickness. Furthermore, by making use of the symmetry present in these tilt data, intensities collected only from similar crystals will be merged.Suitable crystals of glucose-embedded crotoxin complex were searched for in the defocussed diffraction mode with the goniometer tilted to 55° of higher in a JEOL4000 electron cryo-microscopc operated at 400 kV with the crystals kept at -120°C in a Gatan 626 cryo-holder. The crystal thickness was measured using the local contrast of the crystal relative to the supporting film from search-mode images acquired using a 1024 x 1024 slow-scan CCD camera (model 679, Gatan Inc.).