Present status of SPring-8 macromolecular crystallography beamlines

Seven beamlines are operated for macromolecular crystallography (MX) at SPring-8. The three undulator beamlines are developed for cutting edge target and four bending-magnet beamlines are developed for high throughput MX. The undulator beamline, BL41XU that provides the most brilliant beam, is dedicated to obtain high quality data even from small-size and weakly-diffracting crystals. The minimum beam size at sample position is achieved to 10 mu m diameter using a pin-hole collimator. Its photon flux at wavelength lambda = 1.0 angstrom is 2.8 x 10(11) photons/sec. This small beam coupled with irradiation point scanning method is quite useful to take diffraction dataset from small crystals by suppressing the radiation damage. These advanced technologies made a number of difficult protein structure analysis possible, (i.e. Sodium-potassium ATPase ((1))). The bending-magnet hemlines BL26B1/B2 and BL38B1 provide automatic data collection exploiting the high mobility of the beam. The beamline operation software "BSS", sample auto-changer "SPACE" and web-based data management software "D-Cha" have made the automatic data collection possible. The "Mail-in data collection system" that accepts distant users samples via courier service have made users possible to collect diffraction data without visiting SPring-8. The structural genomics research is promoted by these beamlines.