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Snigireva, Irina

Publications and source records attributed to Snigireva, Irina.

4 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2020

Serial femtosecond crystallography on in vivo-grown crystals drives elucidation of mosquitocidal Cyt1Aa bioactivation cascade

Cyt1Aa is the one of four crystalline protoxins produced by mosquitocidal bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti) that has been shown to delay the evolution of insect resistance in the field. Limiting our understanding of Bti efficacy and the path to improved toxicity and spectrum has been ignorance of how Cyt1Aa crystallizes in vivo and of its mechanism of toxicity. Here, we use serial femtosecond crystallography to determine the Cyt1Aa protoxin structure from sub-micron-sized crystals produced in Bti. Structures determined under various pH/redox conditions illuminate the role played by previously uncharacterized disulfide-bridge and domain-swapped interfaces from crystal formation in Bti to dissolution in the larval mosquito midgut. Biochemical, toxicological and biophysical methods enable the deconvolution of key steps in the Cyt1Aa bioactivation cascade. We additionally show that the size, shape, production yield, pH sensitivity and toxicity of Cyt1Aa crystals grown in Bti can be controlled by single atom substitution.

37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CH↗
DOE OSTI2010

Focusing Kinoform Lenses: Optical Design and Experimental Validation

X-ray focusing lenses with a kinoform profile are high brilliance optics that can produce nano-sized beams on 3rd generation synchrotron beamlines. The lenses are fabricated with sidewalls of micrometer lateral size. They are virtually non-absorbing and therefore can deliver a high flux over a good aperture. We are developing silicon and germanium lenses that will focus hard x-ray beams to less than 0.5 {mu}m size using a single refractive element. In this contribution, we present preliminary optical design and experimental test carried out on ID06 ESRF: the lenses were used to image directly the undulator source, providing a beam with fwhm of about 0.7 {mu}m.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2010

X-ray Phase Contrast analysis - Digital wavefront development

Optical schemes that enable imaging of the phase shift produced by an object have become popular in the x-ray region, where phase can be the dominant contrast mechanism. The propagation-based technique consists of recording the interference pattern produced by choosing one or several sample-to-detector distances. Pioneering studies, carried out making use of synchrotron radiation, demonstrated that this technique results in a dramatic increase of image contrast and detail visibility, allowing the detection of structures invisible with conventional techniques. An experimental and theoretical study of in-line hard x-ray phase-contrast imaging had been performed. The theoretical description of the technique is based on Fresnel diffraction. As an illustration of the potential of this quantitative imaging technique, high-resolution x-ray phase contrast images of simple objects will be presented.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗