A powerful and easy-to-use workflow environment has been developed at the ESRF for combining experiment control with online data analysis on synchrotron beamlines. This tool provides the possibility of automating complex experiments without the need for expertise in instrumentation control and programming, but rather by accessing defined beamline services.

The automation of beam delivery, sample handling and data analysis, together with increasing photon flux, diminishing focal spot size and the appearance of fast-readout detectors on synchrotron beamlines, have changed the way that many macromolecular crystallography experiments are planned and executed. Screening for the best diffracting crystal, or even the best diffracting part of a selected crystal, has been enabled by the development of microfocus beams, precise goniometers and fast-readout detectors that all require rapid feedback from the initial processing of images in order to be effective. All of these advances require the coupling of data feedback to the experimental control system and depend on immediate online data-analysis results during the experiment. To facilitate this, a Data Analysis WorkBench (DAWB) for the flexible creation of complex automated protocols has been developed. Here, example workflows designed and implemented using DAWB are presented for enhanced multi-step crystal characterizations, experiments involving crystal re­orientation with kappa goniometers, crystal-burning experiments for empirically determining the radiation sensitivity of a crystal system and the application of mesh scans to find the best location of a crystal to obtain the highest diffraction quality. Beamline users interact with the prepared workflows through a specific brick within the beamline-control GUI MXCuBE.

MxCuBE is a beamline control environment optimized for the needs of macromolecular crystallography. This paper describes the design of the software and the features that MxCuBE currently provides.

The design and features of a beamline control software system for macromolecular crystallography (MX) experiments developed at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) are described. This system, MxCuBE, allows users to easily and simply interact with beamline hardware components and provides automated routines for common tasks in the operation of a synchrotron beamline dedicated to experiments in MX. Additional functionality is provided through intuitive interfaces that enable the assessment of the diffraction characteristics of samples, experiment planning, automatic data collection and the on-line collection and analysis of X-ray emission spectra. The software can be run in a tandem client-server mode that allows for remote control and relevant experimental parameters and results are automatically logged in a relational database, ISPyB. MxCuBE is modular, flexible and extensible and is currently deployed on eight macromolecular crystallography beamlines at the ESRF. Additionally, the software is installed at MAX-lab beamline I911-3 and at BESSY beamline BL14.1.

The crystal structures of two crystal forms of manganese superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD) from the radiation-resistant bacterium D. radiodurans are reported and compared with the crystal structure of Mn-SOD from E. coli.

The structure of the manganese superoxide dismutase (Mn-SOD; DR1279) from Deinococcus radiodurans has been determined in two different crystal forms. Both crystal forms are monoclinic with space group P21. Form I has unit-cell parameters a = 44.28, b = 83.21, c = 59.52 Å, β = 110.18° and contains a homodimer in the asymmetric unit, with structure refinement (R = 16.8%, R free = 23.6%) carried out using data to d min = 2.2 Å. Form II has unit-cell parameters a = 43.57, b = 87.10, c = 116.42 Å, β = 92.1° and an asymmetric unit containing two Mn-SOD homodimers; structure refinement was effected to a resolution of 2.0 Å (R = 17.2%, R free = 22.3%). The resulting structures are compared with that of Mn-SOD from Escherichia coli, with which they are shown to be essentially isostructural.