Lattice Distortions in Protein Superstructures

Solid assemblies of organic compounds often include some inevitable misfit between constituents, giving rise to geometric frustration. This may result in tendency to form filaments, lattice distortions and large morphological variations during the growth of the assembly. In this project, we already applied the BCDI method (ID01) to follow the evolution of lattice distortions in a slender protein single crystals formed by a living organism. However, due to the slender nature of the filament, this successful experiment provided us with only strain tensor in a cross-section of the filament at different heights. We apply for ID13 micro-beam experiment to follow the evolution of average lattice distortions in 3D and to complete the project. This will not only provide the first experimental evidence to geometric frustration in protein crystals, but will also demonstrate the role of spontaneous processes in biological tissue formation.