MARTINI bead form factors for the analysis of time-resolved X-ray scattering of proteins

Time-resolved small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS and WAXS) methods probe the structural dynamics of proteins in solution. Although technologically advanced, these methods are in many cases limited by data interpretation. The calculation of X-ray scattering profiles is computationally demanding and poses a bottleneck for all SAXS/WAXS-assisted structural refinement and, in particular, for the analysis of time-resolved data. A way of speeding up these calculations is to represent biomolecules as collections of coarse-grained scatterers. Here, such coarse-graining schemes are presented and discussed and their accuracies examined. It is demonstrated that scattering factors coincident with the popular MARTINI coarse-graining scheme produce reliable difference scattering in the range 0 < q < 0.75 Å(−1). The findings are promising for future attempts at X-ray scattering data analysis, and may help to bridge the gap between time-resolved experiments and their interpretation.