Application of the phase extension method in virus crystallography

The procedure for phase extension (PX) involves gradually extending the initial phases from low resolution (e.g. ∼8 Å) to the high-resolution limit of a diffraction data set. Structural redundancy present in the viral capsids that display icosahedral symmetry results in a high degree of non-crystallographic symmetry (NCS), which in turn translates into higher phasing power and is critical for improving and extending phases to higher resolution....