The structure of tick-borne encephalitis virus determined at X-ray free-electron lasers. Simulations

The study of virus structures by X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs) has attracted increased attention in recent decades. Such experiments are based on the collection of 2D diffraction patterns measured at the detector following the application of femtosecond X-ray pulses to biological samples. To prepare an experiment at the European XFEL, the diffraction data for the tick-borne encephalitis virus (TBEV) was simulated with different parameters and the optimal values were identified. Following the necessary steps of a well established data-processing pipeline, the structure of TBEV was obtained. In the structure determination presented, a priori knowledge of the simulated virus orientations was used. The efficiency of the proposed pipeline was demonstrated.