Credit: Stanford University
These three computerized renderings, based on an analysis of data from an experiment at LCLS, show how a software tool called Prime can aid in determining the 3-D structure of biomolecules. The image at right shows Prime-refined data for a sample of just 100 X-ray-produced images, called diffraction patterns, of a crystallized form of myoglobin, a protein found in muscle tissue. The image at left shows a simple merging and averaging of the same data, while the middle image shows partial image-correction using another method. The blue in the images represent a 3-D map of electron density in the sample, while the red shows the molecular structure. The "CC" value represents the "correlation coefficient," a measure of data quality in crystallography experiments, with a higher percentage resulting in a higher-quality structure.