Neutron diffractometer for biological macromolecule crystallography

Kurihara, Kazuo; Tanaka, Ichiro*; Niimura, Nobuo

Neutron diffraction provides an experimental method of directly locating hydrogen atoms in proteins and nucleic acids, and the development of the neutron imaging plate (NIP) became a breakthrough event in neutron protein crystallography. A high-resolution neutron diffractometers dedicated to biological macromolecules (BIX-3, BIX-4) with the NIP have been constructed at Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute. The detailed structure of the diffractometer and the systematic procedure of the neutron diffraction experiment from the crystallization of a large single crystal to the data collection and the data processing, and the future prospect of the neutron diffractometry in proteins will be presented.