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Journal logoBIOLOGICAL
CRYSTALLOGRAPHY
ISSN: 1399-0047
Volume 70| Part 9| September 2014| Pages 2331-2343

Direct phase selection of initial phases from single-wavelength anomalous dispersion (SAD) for the improvement of electron density and ab initio structure determination

CROSSMARK_Color_square_no_text.svg

aLife Science Group, Scientific Research Division, National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, 101 Hsin-Ann Road, Hsinchu 30076, Taiwan, bDepartment of Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, cInstitute of Biotechnology, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City 701, Taiwan, and dThe Center for Bioscience and Biotechnology, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan City 701, Taiwan
*Correspondence e-mail: cjchen@nsrrc.org.tw

(Received 18 September 2013; accepted 13 June 2014; online 29 August 2014)

Optimization of the initial phasing has been a decisive factor in the success of the subsequent electron-density modification, model building and structure determination of biological macromolecules using the single-wavelength anomalous dispersion (SAD) method. Two possible phase solutions (φ1 and φ2) generated from two symmetric phase triangles in the Harker construction for the SAD method cause the well known phase ambiguity. A novel direct phase-selection method utilizing the θDS list as a criterion to select optimized phases φam from φ1 or φ2 of a subset of reflections with a high percentage of correct phases to replace the corresponding initial SAD phases φSAD has been developed. Based on this work, reflections with an angle θDS in the range 35–145° are selected for an optimized improvement, where θDS is the angle between the initial phase φSAD and a preliminary density-modification (DM) phase φDMNHL. The results show that utilizing the additional direct phase-selection step prior to simple solvent flattening without phase combination using existing DM programs, such as RESOLVE or DM from CCP4, significantly improves the final phases in terms of increased correlation coefficients of electron-density maps and diminished mean phase errors. With the improved phases and density maps from the direct phase-selection method, the completeness of residues of protein molecules built with main chains and side chains is enhanced for efficient structure determination.

1. Introduction

X-ray protein crystallography has been an efficient and dominant method for determining the three-dimensional structures of biological macromolecules. Despite great progress towards its automation, the phasing of diffraction reflections is still a key step for structure determination. The single-wavelength anomalous dispersion (SAD) method using S atoms and various heavy atoms in protein molecules has become increasingly important in phasing because protein crystals typically suffer from radiation damage during the collection of diffraction data by the commonly used multiple-wavelength anomalous dispersion (MAD) method. Moreover, S-MAD is not easily achievable at current synchrotron facilities because of its absorption edge in the low range of X-ray energies. The rate of success of S-SAD phasing is much more limited than the SAD method using heavy atoms (Hendrickson & Teeter, 1981[Hendrickson, W. A. & Teeter, M. M. (1981). Nature (London), 290, 107-113.]; Dauter et al., 1999[Dauter, Z., Dauter, M., de La Fortelle, E., Bricogne, G. & Sheldrick, G. M. (1999). J. Mol. Biol. 289, 83-92.]; Liu et al., 2000[Liu, Z.-J., Vysotski, E. S., Chen, C.-J., Rose, J. P., Lee, J. & Wang, B.-C. (2000). Protein Sci. 9, 2085-2093.]; Bond et al., 2001[Bond, C. S., Shaw, M. P., Alphey, M. S. & Hunter, W. N. (2001). Acta Cryst. D57, 755-758.]; Cianci et al., 2001[Cianci, M., Rizkallah, P. J., Olczak, A., Raftery, J., Chayen, N. E., Zagalsky, P. F. & Helliwell, J. R. (2001). Acta Cryst. D57, 1219-1229.]; Gordon et al., 2001[Gordon, E. J., Leonard, G. A., McSweeney, S. & Zagalsky, P. F. (2001). Acta Cryst. D57, 1230-1237.]).

The two main steps in structure determination using the SAD method with sulfur and heavy atoms are locating anomalous scattering atoms in the unit cell to obtain the initial SAD phases from the anomalous differences of structure factors from diffraction intensities and improving the phases and electron density from initial SAD phases by density modification with various algorithms. In general, the overall average figure of merit of the SAD phases is much smaller than that from MAD phasing. A powerful method of density modification or phase improvement following the initial SAD phasing is hence essential for the success of structure determination. Several density-modification approaches are available, such as solvent flattening (Wang, 1985[Wang, B.-C. (1985). Methods Enzymol. 115, 90-112.]), maximum entropy in the direct method (Bricogne, 1984[Bricogne, G. (1984). Acta Cryst. A40, 410-445.], 1988[Bricogne, G. (1988). Acta Cryst. A44, 517-545.]), phase extension combined with entropy maximization and solvent flattening (Prince et al., 1988[Prince, E., Sjölin, L. & Alenljung, R. (1988). Acta Cryst. A44, 216-222.]), direct-space methods in phase extension and phase refinement (Refaat et al., 1996[Refaat, L. S., Tate, C. & Woolfson, M. M. (1996). Acta Cryst. D52, 252-256.]), solvent flattening to improve the direct-method phases (Giacovazzo & Siliqi, 1997[Giacovazzo, C. & Siliqi, D. (1997). Acta Cryst. A53, 789-798.]) and the programs DM from CCP4 (Cowtan & Main, 1993[Cowtan, K. D. & Main, P. (1993). Acta Cryst. D49, 148-157.], 1996[Cowtan, K. D. & Main, P. (1996). Acta Cryst. D52, 43-48.]) and RESOLVE (Terwilliger, 2000[Terwilliger, T. C. (2000). Acta Cryst. D56, 965-972.]).

For example, in the SHELXC/D/E program suite (Sheldrick, 2008[Sheldrick, G. M. (2008). Acta Cryst. A64, 112-122.]), SHELXC is designed to provide a statistical analysis of the experimental X-ray diffraction data, to estimate the structure factors FH of scattering atoms and to prepare the preliminary data for SHELXD and SHELXE to locate the positions of heavy atoms for initial phasing (Usón & Sheldrick, 1999[Usón, I. & Sheldrick, G. M. (1999). Curr. Opin. Struct. Biol. 9, 643-648.]; Sheldrick et al., 2001[Sheldrick, G. M., Hauptman, H. A., Weeks, C. M., Miller, M. & Usón, I. (2001). International Tables for Macromolecular Crystallography, Vol. F, edited by E. Arnold & M. Rossmann, pp. 333-345. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.]; Schneider & Sheldrick, 2002[Schneider, T. R. & Sheldrick, G. M. (2002). Acta Cryst. D58, 1772-1779.]) and to improve phases iteratively with density modification (Schneider & Sheldrick, 2002[Schneider, T. R. & Sheldrick, G. M. (2002). Acta Cryst. D58, 1772-1779.]), respectively. The anomalous signals from heavy atoms can alternatively be refined iteratively with Phaser in CCP4 (McCoy et al., 2007[McCoy, A. J., Grosse-Kunstleve, R. W., Adams, P. D., Winn, M. D., Storoni, L. C. & Read, R. J. (2007). J. Appl. Cryst. 40, 658-674.]). The CCP4 program DM can further improve the initial experimental SAD phase to give an improved electron-density map (Cowtan & Main, 1993[Cowtan, K. D. & Main, P. (1993). Acta Cryst. D49, 148-157.], 1996[Cowtan, K. D. & Main, P. (1996). Acta Cryst. D52, 43-48.]). The powerful software SOLVE/RESOLVE can accomplish all of the steps for macromolecular structure determination by the SAD method, including data scaling, location of heavy atoms, initial SAD phasing, density modification and model building. In SAD mode, initial phases are obtained with SOLVE; RESOLVE subsequently performs the identification of noncrystallographic symmetry (NCS; Terwilliger, 2002[Terwilliger, T. C. (2002). Acta Cryst. D58, 2213-2215.]), density modification (Terwilliger, 2000[Terwilliger, T. C. (2000). Acta Cryst. D56, 965-972.]) and automated model building (Terwilliger, 2003[Terwilliger, T. C. (2003). Acta Cryst. D59, 38-44.]). After density modification with solvent flattening, solvent flipping, NCS averaging, histogram matching, maximum likelihood or entropy maximization, an additional step using ARP/wARP can substantially improve the phases (Perrakis et al., 1997[Perrakis, A., Sixma, T. K., Wilson, K. S. & Lamzin, V. S. (1997). Acta Cryst. D53, 448-455.]).

Beyond these protocols, some methods have been developed to resolve the phase ambiguity. One approach is to use the direct method based on the product of the Sim and Cochran distributions, which can improve the initial phases (Wang et al., 2004[Wang, J. W., Chen, J. R., Gu, Y. X., Zheng, C. D., Jiang, F., Fan, H. F., Terwilliger, T. C. & Hao, Q. (2004). Acta Cryst. D60, 1244-1253.]). It has been shown that assigning accurate phases to a few strong reflections can improve the density-modification process in terms of the mean phase errors and map correlation coefficients (Vekhter, 2005[Vekhter, Y. (2005). Acta Cryst. D61, 899-902.]). A recent study reported that the map skewness, which describes the extent to which the extreme values in a map tend to be systematically positive or negative, can be used to identify the correct phases for a few of the strongest reflections. A genetic algorithm was developed to optimize the quality of phases using the skewness of the density map as a target function. Such optimized phases have been used in density modification and the quality of the density maps was better than those generated from the original centroid phases (Uervirojnangkoorn et al., 2013[Uervirojnangkoorn, M., Hilgenfeld, R., Terwilliger, T. C. & Read, R. J. (2013). Acta Cryst. D69, 2039-2049.]). The initial phases obtained from the SAD, SIRAS and SIR methods can be improved according to these two approaches.

In the present work, we focus mainly on the improvement of initial phases from the general SAD method using sulfur or heavy atoms based on a novel `direct phase-selection method' based on a `θDS list', where θDS is the angle between the initial SAD phase and the preliminary DM phase, differing from previously reported methods. We demonstrate that this method of phase selection can resolve the phase ambiguity and improve the phases from SAD with increased effectiveness in combination with RESOLVE or DM utilizing only simple solvent flattening without phase combination and an FOM cutoff. A number of experimental SAD data sets with sulfur or metal (Zn, Gd, Fe and Se) atoms as the anomalous scatterers in proteins have been tested, including two unknown new protein structures; all results show that superior phases can be obtained with this new phase-selection method, yielding an enhanced quality of the corresponding electron-density maps and increased completeness of model building.

2. The phase ambiguity of SAD

The SAD experiment provides measurements of anomalous signals or Bijvoet differences,

[ \Delta {F^ \pm } = |F_{\rm PH}^{(+)}| - |F_{\rm PH}^{(-)} |.\eqno(1)]

The amplitudes of the structure factors, [|F_{\rm PH}^{(+)}|] and [|F_{PH}^{(-)}|], are measured from the diffraction intensities to estimate the contribution of anomalous scattering from heavy atoms. The positions of the heavy-atom substructures (XH) can be located with the direct method or the Patterson method to derive the heavy-atom substructure factors (FH) and the anomalous scattering contributions (FH′′). With this preliminary information, the Harker construction, which is based on the assumption that there are no errors in the amplitudes of structure factors or the heavy-atom model, generates two possible phase solutions (φ1 and φ1), with one being the true phase and the other a false phase, from two symmetric phase triangles, as shown in Fig. 1[link]. This `phase ambiguity' is a well known problem in protein crystallography, especially for the SAD method. The phase triangle shows that the structure factors FH′′ and FPH are dependent on FPH(+) and FPH(-), from which are derived

[|F_{\rm PH}^{(+)}| - |F_{\rm PH}^{(-)} | \cong 2\left|{{F}_{\rm H}''} \right|\sin (\varphi _{\rm PH} - \varphi _{\rm H}) \eqno(2)]

and

[|F_{\rm PH}^{(+)}| + |F_{\rm PH}^{(-)}| \cong 2| {F_{\rm PH}} |, \eqno(3)]

in which φPH and φH are the phases of FPH and FH, respectively. |FPH| is used in the calculation of electron-density maps.

[Figure 1]
Figure 1
Harker construction for SAD phasing. The contribution of heavy atoms to a structure factor consists of a normal part, FH, and an anomalous part, FH′′. The structure factor FPH is a normal part and FPH+ and FPH are anomalous parts of the protein crystal containing heavy atoms.

The phase ambiguity arises from the existence of an angle θ between FPH and FH′′, related to [|F_{\rm PH}^{(+)}|], [|F_{\rm PH}^{(-)}|] and |FH′′|, which can be calculated as (Blundell & Johnson, 1976[Blundell, T. L. & Johnson, L. N. (1976). Protein Crystallography, p. 177. London: Academic Press.])

[\theta \cong \cos^{-1} \{[ |F_{\rm PH}^{(+)}| - | F_{\rm PH}^{(-)}| ]/2|F_{\rm H}'' | \}, \eqno(4)]

and

[\varphi = {\varphi _{\rm SAD}} \pm \theta, \eqno(5)]

in which φSAD is the phase of FH′′.

3. Methods

3.1. Crystal preparation and data collection

Six SAD data sets were collected from five protein crystals with known structures, lysozyme_S (sulfur), lysozyme_Gd (gadolinium), insulin_S, lectin_Zn (zinc) and cytochrome c3_Fe (iron), and one crystal of unknown structure, histidine-containing phosphotransfer B [HptB_Se (selenium)]. The crystallization of these proteins was performed by the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method at 291 K. The crystallizations of lysozyme, insulin, lectin and cytochrome c3 were performed using previously described protocols (Nanao et al., 2005[Nanao, M. H., Sheldrick, G. M. & Ravelli, R. B. G. (2005). Acta Cryst. D61, 1227-1237.]; Nagem et al., 2001[Nagem, R. A. P., Dauter, Z. & Polikarpov, I. (2001). Acta Cryst. D57, 996-1002.]; Huang et al., 2006[Huang, Y.-C., Lin, Y.-H., Shih, C.-H., Shih, C.-L., Chang, T. & Chen, C.-J. (2006). Acta Cryst. F62, 94-96.]; Aragão et al., 2003[Aragão, D., Frazão, C., Sieker, L., Sheldrick, G. M., LeGall, J. & Carrondo, M. A. (2003). Acta Cryst. D59, 644-653.]). Crystals of lysozyme_Gd and lectin_Zn were prepared with the soaking method, whereas HptB_Se was prepared with selenomethionine substitution during expression and crystallized (unpublished work). The X-ray SAD data sets were collected on beamline BL13B1 of the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC) in Taiwan and beamline BL44XU of SPring-8 in Japan. The detailed statistics of data collection are summarized in Table 1[link].

Table 1
Statistics of X-ray data and structure refinement

Values in parentheses are for the outermost shell.

Crystal Cytochrome c3 (Fe-SAD) Lectin (Zn-SAD) Lysozyme (Gd-SAD) Lysozyme (S-SAD) Insulin (S-SAD) HptB (Se-SAD)
Wavelength (Å) 1.73 1.282 1.712 1.55 1.77 0.97
Temperature (K) 110 110 110 110 110 110
Resolution range (Å) 30.0–3.00 30.0–1.90 50.0–2.00 30.0–1.82 30.0–2.52 30.0–2.00
Space group P31 P31 P43212 P43212 I213 I4122
Unit-cell parameters (Å)
a 56.84 97.88 78.82 79.33 78.33 120.54
b 56.84 97.88 78.82 79.33 78.33 120.54
c 95.61 44.61 37.07 37.15 78.33 162.56
Unique reflections 6956 37476 8228 11111 2793 35118
Completeness (%) 100 (100) 99.2 (93.5) 99.8 (97.9) 99.7 (99.7) 99.1 (93.3) 91.6 (90.4)
I/σ(I)〉 22.6 (8.2) 28.2 (3.0) 40.3 (19.4) 79.6 (38.8) 89.1 (54.3) 21.01 (5.6)
Average multiplicity 11.6 8.9 17.2 37.5 20.7 13.4
Rmerge (%) 16.4 5.7 6.1 4.6 3.1 11.5
Refinement
Rwork (%) 18.8 18.9 16.0 17.4 17.6 20.8
Rfree§ (%) 28.1 23.0 24.2 23.0 22.4 25.9
 R.m.s.d., bond lengths (Å) 0.018 0.036 0.021 0.024 0.023 0.026
 R.m.s.d., bond angles (°) 1.90 2.60 1.72 1.87 1.96 2.04
 No. of amino acids 109 159 129 129 51 116
 No. of molecules in asymmetric unit 2 2 1 1 1 3
 Average B factor (Å2) 21.6 38.9 18.9 17.9 17.8 21.0
Rmerge = [\textstyle \sum_{hkl}\sum_{i}|I_{i}(hkl)- \langle I(hkl)\rangle|/][\textstyle \sum_{hkl}\sum_{i}I_{i}(hkl)], where Ii(hkl) is the ith intensity measurement and 〈I(hkl)〉 is the weighted mean of all measurements of I(hkl). The reflection cutoff [I/σ(I) > 0] was applied in generating the statistics.
Rwork = [\textstyle \sum_{hkl}\big ||F_{\rm obs}|-|F_{\rm calc}|\big |/][\textstyle \sum_{hkl}|F_{\rm obs}|], where Fobs and Fcalc are the observed and calculate structure-factor amplitudes of reflection hkl.
§Rfree = [\textstyle \sum_{hkl}\big ||F_{\rm obs}|-|F_{\rm calc}|\big |/][\textstyle \sum_{hkl}|F_{\rm obs}|] for 5% of the reserved reflections.

3.2. Location of substructures and generation of initial SAD phases

The overall procedure of the new phase-selection method for phase improvement in this work is shown in Fig. 2[link]. The details of the input and data for each program in all of the steps in this study are presented in Supplementary List S1.1 The S and heavy-atom substructures (XH) were determined from the anomalous SAD data (ΔF±) with SHELXC/D/E in CCP4 (Sheldrick, 2008[Sheldrick, G. M. (2008). Acta Cryst. A64, 112-122.]), which identified possible sites with high occupancies (Fig. 3[link]). The positions and anomalous signals of S or heavy atoms were iteratively refined; the centroid phases were subsequently generated as the initial SAD phases (φSAD) with Phaser in CCP4 (McCoy et al., 2007[McCoy, A. J., Grosse-Kunstleve, R. W., Adams, P. D., Winn, M. D., Storoni, L. C. & Read, R. J. (2007). J. Appl. Cryst. 40, 658-674.]).

[Figure 2]
Figure 2
Flowchart of the direct phase-selection method combined with RESOLVE or CCP4. The corresponding programs are indicated in parentheses. The solid arrows show the commonly used phase methods and the dashed arrows show the new direct phase-selection method. The ellipses show the initial phases and DM phases for various methods; the rectangles show the anomalous SAD data (ΔF±), the substructure positions of S and heavy atoms (XH) and various maps. The grey rectangle indicates the new direct phase-selection method.
[Figure 3]
Figure 3
Locations of the heavy-atom sites with the corresponding occupancies calculated with SHELXC/D/E in CCP4.

3.3. The control group for commonly used procedures

The flowchart of the overall procedure in this work is divisible into two groups: the control group (indicated by solid lines) and the experimental group (indicated by dashed lines) (Fig. 2[link]). The control group consists of the regular method and the non-constraint method.

3.3.1. Regular method

In this step, we used RESOLVE to improve the initial SAD phase to obtain the final DM phases (φRDM) and the regular map from the data set for the regular method, which is defined below, with the SAD standard protocol, including the Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients (phase probabilities) and fom_cut parameters, which set the initial resolution for density modification at the point at which the FOM has the default value of 0.15 (Terwilliger, 2000[Terwilliger, T. C. (2000). Acta Cryst. D56, 965-972.]). For the parallel comparison, we also separately used the CCP4 program DM with solvent flattening and the standard parameters (Cowtan & Zhang, 1999[Cowtan, K. D. & Zhang, K. Y. J. (1999). Prog. Biophys. Mol. Biol. 72, 245-270.]), including the Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients with all reflections for the entire calculation (all reflections automatically weighted by the σA calculation were used in every cycle), for density modification from the same initial SAD phase. After these calculations, an adapted data set for the regular method was generated that included some important parameters from the mathematical operations, which include hkl, Fhkl, φSAD, initial FOM, φRDM (final DM phase from the regular method), θ, φ1 and φ2, and φC for further evaluation of the `percentage correct'. This process is called the `regular method', and the corresponding electron-density map using the final DM phases φRDM is called the `regular map'.

For the theoretical simulation, the calculated model phases (φC) were generated from the five corresponding refined structures. These initial structural models were obtained from the PDB (PDB entries 1gyo for cytochrome c3, 2bn3 for insulin and 2lyz for lysozyme) and our laboratory (lectin) and were refined with our experimental data with REFMAC5 (Murshudov et al., 2011[Murshudov, G. N., Skubák, P., Lebedev, A. A., Pannu, N. S., Steiner, R. A., Nicholls, R. A., Winn, M. D., Long, F. & Vagin, A. A. (2011). Acta Cryst. D67, 355-367.]; Winn et al., 2011[Winn, M. D. (2011). Acta Cryst. D67, 235-242.]) and visualized or adjusted with Coot (Emsley & Cowtan, 2004[Emsley, P. & Cowtan, K. (2004). Acta Cryst. D60, 2126-2132.]). The statistics of the structure refinement are summarized in Table 1[link].

3.3.2. Non-constraint method

For the non-constraint method, the final DM phases (φNDM) were obtained using RESOLVE with the SAD standard default protocol, except for the Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients and fom_cut parameters, which set the initial resolution for density modification to the point at which the FOM value is 0. For a comparison, the CCP4 program DM was used in parallel to generate φNDM phases with standard default parameters and phase extension in FOM steps, in which only the low-resolution reflections were used in the first cycle and extra reflections were added in each cycle until all of the data were used. Histogram matching and the Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients were excluded. In other words, no phase combination was carried out, thus no Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients are provided; all of the data were used for density modification without a resolution cutoff in this method. After the above calculation with the non-constraint method, φNDM (the final DM phase from the non-constraint method) can be obtained. The phases φNDM and φC were later used for evalution of the `percentage correct'. This process is called the `non-constraint method' and the corresponding electron-density map using final DM phases φNDM is called the `non-constraint map'. This calculation was performed for control purposes for comparison with the following experimental group with the same DM protocols.

3.4. The experimental group

In the experimental group, the direct phase-selection method is utilized as a new algorithm to optimize the initial phases. In this new approach, density modification with simple solvent flattening is first used only once to select one of the two possible phase choices from the SAD phase probability distribution for a subset of the reflections where the phase choice is most likely to be correct, thus differing from the standard approaches using SAD phase combination with Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients throughout density modification.

3.4.1. Preparation of data sets for the simulation test

Among the six SAD experimental data sets, five cases, lysozyme_S, lysozyme_Gd, insulin_S, lectin_Zn and cytochrome c3_Fe, were examined with calculated phases φC from their known models. The preliminary DM phases (φNHLDM) were generated with one cycle of DM from the initial SAD phases φSAD using the CCP4 program DM with solvent flattening, histogram matching and all reflections for the entire calculation, involving no Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients (NHL). The important angle parameters were then generated in the data sets for examination by simulation, some of which differed from those in the data set for the regular method in §[link]3.3, such as φNHLDM, φam (ambiguity phase φ1 or φ2 determined from the preliminary DM phase φNHLDM) and θDS (the angle between the initial SAD phase φSAD and the preliminary DM phase φNHLDM).

3.4.2. Overall procedures of the experimental group

The experimental group in Fig. 2[link] shows the protocol to produce improved phases and direct selection maps. The optimum initial phases φSSAD were determined from φNHLDM by the direct phase-selection method de novo (see details in §§[link]3.4.3 and [link]3.4.4). The DM phase φSDM was subsequently improved from φSSAD using RESOLVE or DM, respectively, in parallel for comparison, using the same protocols as were used in the non-constraint method. The direct selection map is consequently generated with the final DM phases φSDM.

3.4.3. Phase-selection rule and definition

If the preliminary DM phase φNHLDM is located in region 1 or 2, the new initial φam phase is selected as φ1 or φ2, respectively (Fig. 4[link]a). The correct or incorrect selection is defined when φNHLDM and the model-calculated φam are in the same region or in different regions, respectively. The selected correct or incorrect phase φam (φ1 or φ2) is thus based on the phase φNHLDM because the model phase φC is fixed by the refined structures. Here, we define the percentage correct as the number ratio of the reflections with selected correct phases to the total reflections. The percentage correct and the angle θDS define the `confidence level' and the `confidence interval', respectively.

[Figure 4]
Figure 4
(a) Diagram of the various phases. The phase circle is divisible into two parts, with grey and white colours for regions 1 and 2, respectively. (b) Diagram of various phases and the θDS range. The circle is divided into grey and white. Angles θDS < 35° and θDS > 145° in the grey zone show the lower percentage correct in selecting phase φ1 or φ2 in region 1 or 2. (c) A schematic plot of the histograms of percentage correct as a function of the angle θDS.

The protocol to determine the percentage correct for the simulation cases is applicable not only to the direct phase-selection method in the experimental group but also to the regular and non-constraint methods in the control group. However, φC is not available from the practical cases without known structures to distinguish the correct or incorrect phase φam. The distribution statistics of the percentage correct from our five simulation cases enable us to instead use the novel `θDS list' as the criterion to select the phases for the practical cases without structural models. The details of experimental procedures utilizing the θDS list in the direct phase-selection method de novo are described in the following sections.

3.4.4. Direct phase-selection method based on θDS angles

Our simulation results and statistics show that a high percentage correct occurs at an angle θDS in the range between 35 and 145° in regions 1 and 2 (Figs. 4[link]c and 5[link]). A higher confidence level is hence obtained in the confidence interval between 35 and 145° in regions 1 and 2. A `θDS list' from the smallest to the largest angles can be generated. Reflections from the θDS list with the angle θDS between 35 and 145° are selected, which have a relatively high probability of the correct selected phase φam. The selected phase φam is either φ1 or φ2 depending on the preliminary DM phase φNHLDM. The initial phases φSAD of all of the reflections in the range 35–145° are then replaced by the corresponding selected phases φam for optimized improvement.

[Figure 5]
Figure 5
The highest percentage correct occurs at an angle θDS in the range between 35 and 145° for the selected phase φ1 or φ2 in region 1 or 2, respectively. The horizontal axis indicates the range of the angle θDS from 0.1 to 180°, whereas the vertical axis indicates the percentage correct.

The reflections with replaced phases (selected phases φam) and the rest with unselected initial phases φSAD are subsequently combined into a new data set with optimum initial phases φSSAD. In this step, FOM = 1.0 was used as the weighting scheme for the selected phase φam without Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients, whereas the initial FOM values were used for the rest of the unselected phases. In the DM process no phase recombination was carried out, only use of the FOM as the weighting scheme. The final DM phase φSDM was improved from φSSAD using RESOLVE or DM in parallel. After the above calculation, final DM phases φSDM from the direct phase-selection method can be obtained for the calculation of electron density and the evaluation of the percentage correct. Optimum initial phases φSSAD possessing a higher percentage correct have a better chance of improving the DM phases φSDM compared with φRDM and φNDM in the control group. This method is called the `direct phase-selection method'.

4. Results

4.1. Determination of heavy-atom substructures

For five test cases, the substructures in protein crystals were first solved with SHELXC/D/E based on the anomalous difference maps of each SAD data set. The numbers of heavy-atom sites and sulfur `super-atom' sites were determined (Fig. 3[link]). Five and three strong sulfur `super-atom' sites with occupancies greater than 0.75 and 0.60 were located in the unit cells of lysozyme_S and insulin_S at resolutions of 1.82 and 2.52 Å, respectively. Two Zn positions with occupancies near 1 were determined in lectin_Zn. One Gd position with occupancy ∼1 was found in lysozyme_Gd. Eight Fe sites with occupancies greater than 0.8 were located in cytochrome c3_Fe. All of the sites with occupancies found by SHELXC/D/E were input directly to Phaser in CCP4 to generate the initial SAD phases φSAD. The overall initial 〈FOMSAD〉 (mean FOM) of the five test cases were determined as 0.489, 0.262, 0.553, 0.467 and 0.543 for cytochrome c3_Fe, lectin_Zn, lysozyme_Gd, lysozyme_S and insulin_S, respectively.

4.2. Relationship between the percentage correct and the angle θDS

Based on the simulation results using the direct phase-selection method (§[link]3.4) and the model phases φC, the statistics clearly show that the percentage correct at angles θDS in the range between 35 and 145° is generally higher than that at other angles (Figs. 4[link]c and 5[link]). In five simulation cases, the percentage correct could not be efficiently estimated in the θ range 0–10° for lectin_Zn, lysozyme_Gd, lysozyme_S and insulin_S because there are either no or only a few reflections in this small range.

4.3. The percentage correct versus the initial FOM using various methods

In this section, we show how the relation between the initial FOM and the percentage correct varies according to the three methods. In five simulation cases, the data sets from the regular method, the non-constraint method and the direct phase-selection method show that the percentage correct varies with the range of the initial FOM (Fig. 6[link]). After calculations with the regular method, the non-constraint method and the direct phase-selection method, some parameters, including the final DM phase and the model-calculated phase φC, are used to evaluate the percentage correct for each case for comparison purposes. A correct or incorrect selection is defined as when the final DM phase (φRDM, φNDM or φSDM) and the model-calculated φC are in the same region or are in different regions, respectively. The percentage correct is defined as the number ratio of reflections with selected correct phases to the total reflections. A comparison of the same reflections in each FOM interval among the data sets from the regular method, the non-constraint method and the direct phase-selection method indicates that the percentage correct using the direct selection method is higher than those of the regular and non-constraint methods in all five cases. The percentage correct with the regular method is slightly higher than that with the non-constraint method in each case (Fig. 6[link]).

[Figure 6]
Figure 6
Percentage correct as a function of FOM for initial phases with the regular method, the non-constraint method and the direct phase-selection method. The horizontal axis indicates the initial FOM from the smallest to the largest values (0–1.0).

4.4. Improvement of density-map quality

In this section, we examine the differences among the regular map, the non-constraint map and the direct phase-selection map after final density modification with RESOLVE. A comparison of the regular maps, non-constraint maps and the direct phase-selection maps in all five test cases shows that the continuity and completeness of the electron-density maps using the direct phase-selection method are significantly improved and are superior to those of the regular map and the non-constraint map (Fig. 7[link]). The statistical indicators, such as the map correlation coefficient and mean phase error, for the map quality after DM are evaluated in Table 2[link]. On comparison, the new direct phase-selection method gives better map quality statistics than those for the regular and non-constraint methods for all test cases.

Table 2
Comparison of indicators of map quality among various methods with RESOLVE

    Initial phase map CC DM phase map CC      
Data set Method M.C. S.C. M.C. S.C. Mean phase errorΔφDM (°) Residues built with main chain§ (%) Residues built with side chain§ (%)
Cytochrome c3 (Fe-SAD) Non-constraint 0.544 0.441 0.560 0.438 63.19
Regular 0.544 0.441 0.584 0.440 62.43
Direct 0.575 0.490 0.624 0.547 52.07
φC selection 0.677 0.596 0.737 0.656 28.07    
Lectin (Zn-SAD) Non-constraint 0.617 0.339 0.589 0.332 72.02 40.8 8.8
Regular 0.617 0.339 0.595 0.332 70.35 36.7 14.8
Direct 0.717 0.470 0.836 0.613 54.28 84.3 80.8
φC selection 0.840 0.592 0.901 0.692 32.72    
Lysozyme (Gd-SAD) Non-constraint 0.657 0.445 0.610 0.384 55.12 0.0 0.0
Regular 0.657 0.445 0.662 0.422 52.82 0.0 0.0
Direct 0.731 0.533 0.808 0.655 41.01 90.7 90.7
φC selection 0.779 0.607 0.807 0.673 28.16    
Lysozyme (S-SAD) Non-constraint 0.618 0.425 0.437 0.344 62.31 10.4 8.5
Regular 0.618 0.425 0.448 0.360 61.79 6.2 2.3
Direct 0.698 0.492 0.774 0.620 44.67 93.8 93.8
φC selection 0.775 0.568 0.821 0.671 29.26    
Insulin (S-SAD) Non-constraint 0.610 0.497 0.750 0.653 34.34 90.2 90.2
Regular 0.610 0.497 0.762 0.679 33.02 91.2 91.2
Direct 0.672 0.573 0.773 0.684 30.12 92.8 92.8
φC selection 0.735 0.631 0.773 0.670 23.70    
HptB (Se-SAD) Non-constraint 0.590 0.406 0.611 0.428 55.54 58.6 12.6
Regular 0.590 0.406 0.617 0.427 55.53 29.0 3.2
Direct 0.641 0.538 0.781 0.622 38.14 87.6 85.1
†Map CC, map correlation coefficient; M.C., main chain; S.C., side chain.
‡Mean phase error 〈ΔφDM = [(1/N)\textstyle\sum_i |\varphi (i) - \varphi _{\rm c}(i)|], where φ(i) is the DM phase of the ith reflection and φc(i) is the model phase. N donates the total number of reflections.
§The completeness of autobuilt residues with side chains was calculated with ARP/wARP. All proteins can be auto-built except for cytochrome c3_Fe, because the resolution limit of autobuilding in ARP/wARP is ∼2.5 Å.
¶Phase φ1 or φ2 is selected based on the model phase φC.
[Figure 7]
Figure 7
Electron-density maps of cytochrome c3_Fe, lectin_Zn, lysozyme_Gd, lysozyme_S, insulin_S and HptB_Se (the unknown structure) after density modification with RESOLVE from various methods (the non-constraint map, the regular map and the direct selection map) are shown with the same contour level 1.0σ in blue. The corresponding structures are shown as black sticks.

Similarly, with the above-mentioned protocol but using the CCP4 program DM with solvent flattening, the results from all test cases show that the new selection method gives better statistics than those for the regular and non-constraint methods (Table 3[link]).

Table 3
Comparison of indicators of map quality among various methods with the CCP4 program DM

    Initial phase map CC DM phase map CC      
Data set Method M.C. S.C. M.C. S.C. Mean phase errorΔφDM (°) Residues built with main chain§ (%) Residues built with side chain§ (%)
Cytochrome c3 (Fe-SAD) Non-constraint 0.544 0.441 0.551 0.477 58.28
Regular 0.544 0.441 0.554 0.475 58.48
Direct 0.575 0.490 0.603 0.525 54.47
φC selection 0.677 0.596 0.719 0.636 31.01    
Lectin (Zn-SAD) Non-constraint 0.617 0.339 0.720 0.481 64.61 78.3 73.8
Regular 0.617 0.339 0.723 0.482 64.72 79.8 79.8
Direct 0.717 0.470 0.772 0.536 57.08 84.0 80.8
φC selection 0.840 0.592 0.883 0.668 28.00    
Lysozyme (Gd-SAD) Non-constraint 0.657 0.445 0.715 0.514 49.93 91.4 91.4
Regular 0.657 0.445 0.730 0.525 49.14 90.6 90.6
Direct 0.731 0.533 0.774 0.596 44.51 95.4 95.4
φC selection 0.779 0.607 0.794 0.636 30.03    
Lysozyme (S-SAD) Non-constraint 0.618 0.425 0.681 0.499 52.29 96.1 96.1
Regular 0.618 0.425 0.690 0.507 51.74 96.1 96.1
Direct 0.698 0.492 0.747 0.561 47.03 96.8 96.8
φC selection 0.775 0.568 0.809 0.627 30.67    
Insulin (S-SAD) Non-constraint 0.610 0.497 0.730 0.622 37.16 90.4 90.0
Regular 0.610 0.497 0.733 0.628 36.56 91.1 90.7
Direct 0.672 0.573 0.741 0.632 36.06 91.4 90.8
φC selection 0.735 0.631 0.764 0.658 24.78    
HptB (Se-SAD) Non-constraint 0.590 0.406 0.795 0.579 44.04 85.2 84.1
Regular 0.590 0.406 0.803 0.591 43.25 84.9 84.7
Direct 0.641 0.538 0.821 0.613 40.11 88.5 85.6
φC selection 0.745 0.589 0.769 0.625 26.30    
†Map CC, map correlation coefficient; M.C., main chain; S.C., side chain.
‡Mean phase error 〈ΔφDM = [(1/N)\textstyle\sum_i |\varphi (i) - \varphi _{\rm c}(i)|], where φ(i) is the DM phase of the ith reflection and φc(i) is the model phase. N donates the total number of reflections.
§The completeness of autobuilt residues with side chains was calculated with ARP/wARP. All proteins can be auto-built except for cytochrome c3_Fe, because the resolution limit of autobuilding in ARP/wARP is ∼2.5 Å.
¶Phase φ1 or φ2 is selected based on the model phase φC.

4.5. A comparison of model building with regular, non-constraint and direct selection maps

In our experiment, automated model building after the final density modification with RESOLVE for the five test cases was performed with ARP/wARP. According to the results of model building shown in Table 2[link], the completeness of autobuilt residues with main chains and side chains in lectin_Zn, lysozyme_Gd and lysozyme_S with the direct phase-selection method is greater than those with the non-constraint and regular methods. The autobuilding results for insulin_S are comparable among the three methods. For a parallel comparison, improvements in model building were also observed with the CCP4 program DM combined with the direct phase-selection method (Table 3[link]).

All of the proteins could be autobuilt using ARP/wARP except for cytochrome c3_Fe (resolution 3.0 Å) because of the resolution limitation of 2.5 Å for ARP/wARP autobuilding. The structure of cytochrome c3_Fe could, however, be built manually (73%) based on the improved density map at resolution 3.0 Å generated from the direct phase-selection method compared with the maps from the regular and non-constraint methods, which were not suitable for model building because of severe discontinuity.

4.6. Application to an unknown structure

In this section, we applied our newly investigated selection method to a practical case with an unknown structure: histidine-containing phosphotransfer domain B (HptB). HptB comprises 116 amino-acid residues with a molecular mass of ∼13.2 kDa. HptB_Se was expressed in E. coli in selenomethionine medium for Se-SAD phasing and structure determination. Crystals of HptB_Se diffracted to 2.0 Å resolution and exhibited the symmetry of space group I4122 (Table 1[link]). Interpretations of the anomalous difference map with SHELXC/D/E revealed nine Se sites with occupancies in the range 0.4–1.0 (Fig. 3[link]). The overall 〈FOMSAD〉 of the initial SAD phases was determined to be 0.428 using Phaser in CCP4.

The preliminary DM phases (φNHLDM) were obtained from the initial SAD phases after the first run of DM in CCP4. The θDS list from the smallest to the largest was then generated; the phase φ1 or φ2 in each reflection at a corresponding angle θDS in a range between 35 and 145° was subsequently selected with the direct phase-selection method. Data sets with optimized φSSAD were generated and subsequently directed to RESOLVE to calculate the direct selection map with improved final DM phases φSDM (Fig. 7[link]). In this step, no phase combination was carried out, thus no Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients were provided; all of the data were used for density modification without a resolution cutoff. For comparison, the regular and non-constraint maps were also obtained with the regular and non-constraint methods, respectively, using RESOLVE. As a result, similar to the five test cases, the continuity and completeness of the direct selection map were significantly improved (Fig. 7[link]).

The initial protein structure was then autobuilt with ARP/wARP and the final model was refined and completed with REFMAC5 and Coot. The results of the automated model building of the HptB_Se structure with ARP/wARP are compared among the various methods, which show that the direct selection method produces a much higher completeness of residues built with side chains and main chains (Table 2[link]). The newly determined and refined structure of HptB allowed us to calculate the model phases (φC) to interpret and to compare the regular method, the non-constraint method and the direct selection method with the statistics of map-quality indicators using RESOLVE. According to the comparison, the quality of the electron-density map using our new direct phase-selection method is much improved, with superior statistics for indicators including the map correlation coefficient, the mean phase error and the completeness of built residues (Table 2[link] and Fig. 7[link]). For a comparison, improvements were also obtained with the CCP4 program DM combined with the direct phase-selection method (Table 3[link]).

A few more test examples, including chitinase with Zn atoms (Hsieh, Wu et al., 2010[Hsieh, Y.-C., Wu, Y.-J., Chiang, T.-Y., Kuo, C.-Y., Shrestha, K. L., Chao, C.-F., Huang, Y.-C., Chuankhayan, P., Wu, W., Li, Y.-K. & Chen, C.-J. (2010). J. Biol. Chem. 285, 31603-31615.]), sulfite reductase with Fe (Hsieh, Liu et al., 2010[Hsieh, Y.-C., Liu, M.-Y., Wang, V. C.-C., Chiang, Y.-L., Liu, E.-H., Wu, W., Chan, S. I. & Chen, C.-J. (2010). Mol. Microbiol. 78, 1101-1116.]) and the unknown structure of haemerythrin with Fe (Phimonphan et al., unpublished data), have also been applied and examined using our new phase-selection method. All of the results showed that the direct phase-selection method produced a similar improvement as in previously described cases, with enhanced electron densities and statistics of indicators (Supplementary Table S1).

5. Discussion

5.1. Simulated phase selection based on the model phase φC

According to the direct phase-selection method, a portion of the φam (φ1 or φ2) phase set can be correctly selected with preliminary DM phases φNHLDM. Our ultimate objective is to select the correct phase (φ1 or φ2) optimally. In our simulation experiment, we demonstrate that the correct phase (φ1 or φ2 can be effectively selected with the model phase φC for each reflection in all simulation cases. The correct selected phases φam are hence highly dependent on the phases φC. The mean phase errors of the final DM phases and the map correlation coefficients of both the initial phases and the final DM phases were calculated for five simulation cases for evaluation (Table 2[link]). A comparison of the results clearly shows that the simulation with known φC produces much improved map correlation coefficients and mean phase errors (by 0.05–0.3 and 10–35°, respectively) relative to the regular and non-constraint methods with RESOLVE. A similar improvement of map correlation coefficients and mean phase errors was observed using the direct selection method combining the CCP4 program DM with solvent flattening and standard parameters (Table 3[link]). This simulation provides a basis for the use of the correctly selected initial phases to improve the map correlation coefficients and mean phase errors. However, φC is unavailable in practical cases without known structures for the selection of the correct phase φam. The derivative direct phase-selection method using the angle θDS, without the information of φC, is hence investigated to improve the electron-density map for practical applications.

5.2. Comparison of the quality of density maps with various methods

In all test cases, the electron-density map from our new direct phase-selection method is significantly better than those from conventional approaches in terms of map continuity and completeness (Fig. 7[link]). The map correlation coefficients and mean phase errors are generally improved by 0.05–0.2 and 10–18°, respectively, using the direct phase-selection method with a single cycle utilizing the new selected phases φam (φ1 or φ2), with a higher confidence level to replace the corresponding initial SAD phases φSAD (Table 2[link]). An iterative calculation with several cycles was also performed to examine any improvement; however, we found that the direct phase-selection method with two or three cycles did not show a notable improvement in map quality and indicators. All of the simulation results show that using selected phases φam (φ1 or φ2) based on the preliminary DM phase φNHLDM, instead of φC, could efficiently improve the map correlation coefficients and mean phase errors and generate density maps of a higher quality from the final DM phases φSDM compared with the regular methods with the Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients and the commonly used DM default procedures.

To further demonstrate the power of the direct phase-selection method, calculations using the regular method with combinations of phase choice by OASIS direct methods and density modification with RESOLVE and DM were carried out for comparison. In general, the regular method with OASIS initial phases and DM produced results better than those with OASIS initial phases and RESOLVE. However, our direct phase-selection method gave results that were superior overall to calculations using OASIS initial phases combined with both DM programs (Supplementary Table S2).

Moreover, from analysis of our direct phase-selection method, selecting one of the two phase choices from the SAD phase probability distribution seems to shift the starting phase more than performing phase combination. Thus, we performed solvent flipping, another over-shifting method, for comparison. The results showed that using solvent flipping in the regular method did not produce better results than the direct selection method in terms of the mean phase errors and residues built (Supplementary Table S3).

5.3. Comparison of the map quality with various aspects of the direct selection method

To optimize the algorithm for direct phase selection, we performed a parallel comparison with various aspects related to this method, including FOM weighting, resolution, iterative cycles, initial SAD phases and ranges. For the FOM, we performed a parallel comparison of three different FOM weighting schemes in our direct phase-selection method: (i) FOM = 1.0 for the selected phases and the initial FOM from SAD for the unselected phases, (ii) FOM = 1.0 for all phases and (iii) the initial FOM from SAD for all corresponding phases. From the parallel comparison, the direct selection method with the weighting scheme (i), which is used in this study, is either comparable to or better than the other two weighting schemes (ii) and (iii) (Supplementary Table S4). We also examined other possible weighting schemes coupled with the selection criteria, i.e. the percentage correct. Fig. 5[link] shows that the percentage correct varies at different ranges of θDS. We tested the weighting scheme corresponding to the percentage correct for selected reflections in the range 35–145°. The respective FOM values are calculated based on the ratio of percentage correct for reflections in different θDS ranges. For the unselected reflections, the FOMs are set to the initial FOM values from SAD phasing. The comparison shows that the weighting scheme (i) with FOM = 1 for the directly selected phases is either better than or comparable to the percentage correct-dependent FOM weighting scheme.

For the resolution, we examined various resolution ranges varying from the highest resolution of the data and found no notable differences in improvement. For the iterative cycles, a series of iterative cycles were performed to examine any improvement with the direct phase-selection method, which showed that two or three more cycles did not produce a significant further improvement of the map quality and indicators. For the SAD initial phases, we tested the initial SAD phases generated from OASIS (He et al., 2007[He, Y., Yao, D.-Q., Gu, Y.-X., Lin, Z.-J., Zheng, C.-D. & Fan, H.-F. (2007). Acta Cryst. D63, 793-799.]) and performed the same protocols of the direct phase-selection method. The results show that our direct selection method using initial SAD phases generated directly from Phaser was better than using initial phases from OASIS. The details of the ranges used are described in the following section.

5.4. Percentage correct as a function of the angle θDS

For determination of the optimized range in this work, we extensively analyzed all of the calculations in various ranges for all test cases (Supplementary Table S5). The statistical indicators, including the map correlation coefficients, the mean phase errors and the completeness of the built residues, were improved in all cases with reflections with selected phases φam at θDS angles in the range 35–145° (except for lectin_Zn, where the angles were in the range 40–140°) relative to the other angle ranges. Considering the comparable statistical indicators (mean phase error 54.28° versus 54.14°) and the completeness of the built residues (84.3% versus 84.9% for main chains and 80.8% versus 80.5% for side chains) using the θDS ranges 35–145° and 40–140°, respectively (Supplementary Table S5), we suggest selecting the reflection phases from angles in the range 35–145° for lectin_Zn as in the other cases for unanimity based on statistical analysis. The fraction of selected reflections is about 0.28–0.48 of the total reflections for θDS angles between 35 and 145° in all six cases.

θDS angles of <35° and >145° show a lower percentage correct for the selection of phase φ1 or φ2 in region 1 or 2. For cases with θDS < 35°, the angles between the preliminary DM phase φSAD and the initial SAD phase φNHLDM might be too small to resolve the ambiguity from the two initial phases (φ1 and φ2) in the grey zone with a low percentage correct (Figs. 4[link]b and 4[link]c). Similarly, for cases with θDS > 145° (the grey zone), the angles between φNHLDM and φSAD might be too large such that the two initial phases (φ1 and φ2) cannot be effectively distinguished for the correct or incorrect phases with a low percentage correct.

We found that a higher average intensity 〈I〉 commonly corresponds to an angle θDS in the range between 40° and 120° (Supplementary Table S6). Some individual strong reflections have been shown to improve the map quality after density modification (Uervirojnangkoorn et al., 2013[Uervirojnangkoorn, M., Hilgenfeld, R., Terwilliger, T. C. & Read, R. J. (2013). Acta Cryst. D69, 2039-2049.]; Vekhter, 2005[Vekhter, Y. (2005). Acta Cryst. D61, 899-902.]; Zhang & Main, 1990[Zhang, K. Y. J. & Main, P. (1990). Acta Cryst. A46, 377-381.]). The distribution of strong reflections might be one of the reasons why the higher percentage correct occurs at a θDS angle in the range 35–145° (Figs. 4[link]c and 5[link]). The algorithm of our direct selection method based on θDS angle combined with weighting schemes is different from previous methods.

5.5. Percentage correct versus initial FOM with various methods

A comparison of reflections in the same batch among different data sets for the regular method, the non-constraint method and the direct phase-selection method shows that the percentage correct with the direct phase-selection method is generally 5–10% higher than that with the regular and non-constraint methods in the five simulation cases (Fig. 6[link]). Using the selected phases φam (φ1 or φ2) could thus efficiently improve the percentage correct compared with the regular method with the Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients and the commonly used DM procedure as described in §[link]2. The percentage correct generally decreases for reflections with large initial FOM values (>0.8), which might result from the two close phases (φ1 and φ2), similar to cases with θDS < 35°. The percentage correct might also be affected by lack of closure, random errors and systematic errors (Borek et al., 2003[Borek, D., Minor, W. & Otwinowski, Z. (2003). Acta Cryst. D59, 2031-2038.]).

6. Conclusions

The discussions above clearly show that the new procedure of phase improvement, i.e. the direct phase-selection method, combined with RESOLVE or the CCP4 program DM, can effectively improve the phase in comparison to the regular method with Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients using RESOLVE and DM. In the direct selection method, the SAD standard protocol was applied in the RESOLVE routine except for the Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients and fom_cut parameters. Similar improvements in SAD phases and density maps were obtained using DM with standard parameters except for histogram matching and Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients.

Ideally, according to our simulation study, a relatively high completeness for the selection of the correct phases φ1 or φ2 could be achievable, but only based on known φC. A lack of known structures or model-calculated φC in the practical applications led us to investigate the novel `direct phase-selection method', which utilizes the `θDS list' to select phases φam from φ1 or φ2 of selected reflections (28–48%) with high percentage correct phases to replace the corresponding initial SAD phases φSAD. A comparative analysis implies that the choice of a proper subset of reflections with the selected phase based on θDS might be more decisive than other aspects, such as the DM program and weighting scheme, in which FOM = 1.0 is used for the selected phases and the initial FOM of SAD is used for the unselected phases in this method.

Optimization of the initial phasing is considered to be a decisive factor in the success of the subsequent electron-density modification, model building and structure determination with the SAD method. Our new direct phase-selection method provides a powerful protocol with an essential additional selection step, combined with current DM software for simple solvent flattening, such as RESOLVE and DM, to resolve the initial phase ambiguities of a subset of reflections for further density modification. In contrast to most phase-improvement studies, which focus on density modification after the initial SAD phasing, our method focuses on the optimization of the initial phasing of a subset of reflections by imposing a binary phase choice, without using phase combination, to shift the phase probability distribution towards the better phase choice. With better initial SAD phases before carrying out the general DM procedure, the success rate of structure determination might be increased. The resulting final DM phases and electron-density maps were effectively improved by the direct phase-selection method compared with the regular method with Hendrickson–Lattman coefficients, yielding improved statistical indicators of map quality and completeness of model building. Based on our test results, with data of average or below average quality (high Rmerge or medium–low resolution), the direct phase-selection method with an additional selection step for simple solvent flattening could still perform well with good electron density for model building. Optimization and increased completeness of the phase selection will be studied systematically in the near future.

Supporting information


Footnotes

1Supporting information has been deposited in the IUCr electronic archive (Reference: MH5112 ).

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the supporting staff at beamlines BL13B1, BL13C1 and BL15A1 at the National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center (NSRRC) and Masato Yoshimura and Hirofumi Ishii at the Taiwan-contracted beamline BL12B2 and beamline BL44XU at SPring-8 for technical assistance under proposal Nos. 2011A4017, 2011A4002, 2011B4012, 2011B4004, 2012A4009 and 2012A6760. We thank Professor Tomake Tsukihara for valuable suggestions and discussions. This work was supported in part by National Science Council (NSC) grants 98-2313-B-009-001-MY3 and 101-2628-B-213-001-MY4 and National Synchrotron Radiation Center (NSRRC) grants 1003RSB02 and 1023RSB02 to C-JC.

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Journal logoBIOLOGICAL
CRYSTALLOGRAPHY
ISSN: 1399-0047
Volume 70| Part 9| September 2014| Pages 2331-2343
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