Incoherent elastic neutron scattering as a function of temperature: A fastway to characterise in-situ biological dynamics in complex solutions

Thermal motions in macromolecules have been shown to be highly relevant in biology, allowing, for example, functionally important conformational chang es to occur on much longer rime-scales. Because of the values of their asso ciated wavelengths and energies, thermal and cold neutrons are uniquely sui table for the characterization of these confined pico- to nano-second motio ns. Information useful to furthering understanding in biology, however, is mostly derived from measurements on many different systems under various co nditions. Incoherent elastic neutron scattering temperature scans allow rap id screening of samples and conditions. The power of the method is demonstr ated by recent results on proteins in solution and complex biological syste ms.