Upgrade of the BioMUR beamline at the Kurchatov synchrotron radiation source for serial small-angle X-ray scattering experiments in solutions

Technical and methodological work was carried out to improve the quality of the experiments at the small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) beamline ”BioMUR” at the Kurchatov synchrotron radiation source, commissioned in 2018. Scatterless slits (JJ X-ray company, Denmark) were installed and tested, and the beam adjustment scheme of the “BioMUR” modified accordingly. Now outdated and not very effective mylar windows were replaced by mica vacuum windows providing significantly lower parasitic scattering. SAXS experiments on the solutions of weakly scattering lysozyme and bovine serum albumin proteins confirmed the significant improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio achieved due to the upgrade of the “BioMUR”.