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An evaluation of adhesive sample holders for advanced crystallographic experiments

The hydration state of macromolecular crystals often affects their overall order and, ultimately, the quality of the X-ray diffraction pattern that they produce. Post-crystallization techniques that alter the solvent content of a crystal may induce rearrangement within the three-dimensional array ma...

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Autores principales: Mazzorana, Marco, Sanchez-Weatherby, Juan, Sandy, James, Lobley, Carina M. C., Sorensen, Thomas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: International Union of Crystallography 2014
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4157448/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25195752
http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S1399004714014370
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author Mazzorana, Marco
Sanchez-Weatherby, Juan
Sandy, James
Lobley, Carina M. C.
Sorensen, Thomas
author_facet Mazzorana, Marco
Sanchez-Weatherby, Juan
Sandy, James
Lobley, Carina M. C.
Sorensen, Thomas
author_sort Mazzorana, Marco
collection PubMed
description The hydration state of macromolecular crystals often affects their overall order and, ultimately, the quality of the X-ray diffraction pattern that they produce. Post-crystallization techniques that alter the solvent content of a crystal may induce rearrangement within the three-dimensional array making up the crystal, possibly resulting in more ordered packing. The hydration state of a crystal can be manipulated by exposing it to a stream of air at controlled relative humidity in which the crystal can equilibrate. This approach provides a way of exploring crystal hydration space to assess the diffraction capabilities of existing crystals. A key requirement of these experiments is to expose the crystal directly to the dehydrating environment by having the minimum amount of residual mother liquor around it. This is usually achieved by placing the crystal on a flat porous support (Kapton mesh) and removing excess liquid by wicking. Here, an alternative approach is considered whereby crystals are harvested using adhesives that capture naked crystals directly from their crystallization drop, reducing the process to a one-step procedure. The impact of using adhesives to ease the harvesting of different types of crystals is presented together with their contribution to background scattering and their usefulness in dehydration experiments. It is concluded that adhesive supports represent a valuable tool for mounting macromolecular crystals to be used in humidity-controlled experiments and to improve signal-to-noise ratios in diffraction experiments, and how they can protect crystals from modifications in the sample environment is discussed.
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spelling pubmed-41574482014-10-07 An evaluation of adhesive sample holders for advanced crystallographic experiments Mazzorana, Marco Sanchez-Weatherby, Juan Sandy, James Lobley, Carina M. C. Sorensen, Thomas Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr Research Papers The hydration state of macromolecular crystals often affects their overall order and, ultimately, the quality of the X-ray diffraction pattern that they produce. Post-crystallization techniques that alter the solvent content of a crystal may induce rearrangement within the three-dimensional array making up the crystal, possibly resulting in more ordered packing. The hydration state of a crystal can be manipulated by exposing it to a stream of air at controlled relative humidity in which the crystal can equilibrate. This approach provides a way of exploring crystal hydration space to assess the diffraction capabilities of existing crystals. A key requirement of these experiments is to expose the crystal directly to the dehydrating environment by having the minimum amount of residual mother liquor around it. This is usually achieved by placing the crystal on a flat porous support (Kapton mesh) and removing excess liquid by wicking. Here, an alternative approach is considered whereby crystals are harvested using adhesives that capture naked crystals directly from their crystallization drop, reducing the process to a one-step procedure. The impact of using adhesives to ease the harvesting of different types of crystals is presented together with their contribution to background scattering and their usefulness in dehydration experiments. It is concluded that adhesive supports represent a valuable tool for mounting macromolecular crystals to be used in humidity-controlled experiments and to improve signal-to-noise ratios in diffraction experiments, and how they can protect crystals from modifications in the sample environment is discussed. International Union of Crystallography 2014-08-29 /pmc/articles/PMC4157448/ /pubmed/25195752 http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S1399004714014370 Text en © Mazzorana et al. 2014 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are cited.
spellingShingle Research Papers
Mazzorana, Marco
Sanchez-Weatherby, Juan
Sandy, James
Lobley, Carina M. C.
Sorensen, Thomas
An evaluation of adhesive sample holders for advanced crystallographic experiments
title An evaluation of adhesive sample holders for advanced crystallographic experiments
title_full An evaluation of adhesive sample holders for advanced crystallographic experiments
title_fullStr An evaluation of adhesive sample holders for advanced crystallographic experiments
title_full_unstemmed An evaluation of adhesive sample holders for advanced crystallographic experiments
title_short An evaluation of adhesive sample holders for advanced crystallographic experiments
title_sort evaluation of adhesive sample holders for advanced crystallographic experiments
topic Research Papers
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4157448/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25195752
http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S1399004714014370
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