Upgrade of IMCA-CAT Bending Magnet Beamline 17-BM for Macromolecular Crystallography at the Advanced Photon Source

Pharmaceutical research depends on macromolecular crystallography as a tool in drug design and development. To solve the de novo three-dimensional atomic structure of a protein, it is essential to know the phases of the X-rays scattered by a protein crystal. Experimental phases can be obtained from multiwavelength anomalous dispersion (MAD) experiments. Dedicated to macromolecular crystallography, the IMCA-CAT bending magnet beamline at sector 17 of the Advanced Photon Source (APS) was upgraded to provide the energy resolution required to successfully perform synchrotron radiation-based MAD phasing of protein crystal structures. A collimating mirror was inserted into the beam path upstream of a double-crystal monochromator, thus increasing the monochromatic beam throughput in a particular bandwidth without sacrificing the energy resolution of the system. The beam is focused horizontally by a sagittally bent crystal and vertically by a cylindrically bent mirror, delivering a beam at the sample of 130 μm (vertically) x 250 μm (horizontally) FWHM. As a result of the upgrade, the beamline now operates with an energy range of 7.5x17.5 keV, delivers 8 x 10+11 photons/sec at 12.398 keV at the sample, and has an energy resolution of δE/E = 1.45 x 10-4 at 10 keV, which is suitable for MAD experiments