Regensburg 2022 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 17: Membranes and Vesicles
BP 17.6: Talk
Wednesday, September 7, 2022, 16:30–16:45, H13
Coherent Diffractive Imaging of Synaptic Vesicles by Femtosecond FEL pulses — •Charlotte Neuhaus1, Jette Alfken1, Moritz Stammer1, SPB Team2, Marcelo Ganzella3, Reinhard Jahn3, and Tim Salditt1 — 1Georg-August-Universität, Institute for X-ray Physics, Friedrich-Hund-Platz 1, 37077 Göttingen — 2European XFEL, Holzkoppel 4, 22869, Schenefeld, Germany — 3Department of Neurobiology, Max-Planck-Institut for Multidisciplinary Sciences, Am Faßberg 11, 37077, Göttingen, Germany
Synaptic Vesicles (SVs) are secretory organelles which store neurotransmitters in presynaptic nerve endings. Due to the small size of vesicles (R ≈ 20 nm), a high spatial resolution is needed to gain more insights into the structure and structural dynamics of SVs, including functional lipid and protein components. To this end, solution SAXS experiments were previously used, yielding information about the average electron density of SVs. However, many of the relevant structural properties and parameters are screened by ensemble averaging, given the substantial polydispersity of SVs and unavoidable contaminations in the preparations. To overcome these limitations, we have carried out serial diffraction experiments on single vesicles (including lipid vesicles, proteoliposomes and SVs) delivered by an aerosol jet into a nano-focused X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) beam. By the ’diffraction before destroy’ principle, the individual vesicles can be probed without radiation damage. Thousands of diffraction patterns can now be analyzed and reconstructed. We report these experiments and preliminary results (data analysis still ongoing).