A supersaturation wave of protein crystallization

Abstract

A microgravity protein crystallization experiment is described in which the existence of a supersaturation wave traveling across a diffusion-reaction system is experimentally demonstrated for the first time. The self-organized dynamics of the experimental setup were used to implement a crystallization technique able to search automatically through the crystallization parameter space for optimum nucleation and growth conditions. The crystals obtained by this automatic optimization produced the highest quality X-ray diffraction data ever collected from the model protein used in the experiment. #

Microfluidics: From crystallization to serial time-resolved crystallography

“…49,50 B. Capillary-based counter-diffusion methods Much of the motivation and inspiration for early microfluidic efforts in protein crystallization were connected with experiments performed in microgravity. [51][52][53] The excitement regarding these experiments was fueled by the production of higher quality diffraction for nearly 35% of the targets investigated in space, as compared to ground-based methods. The advantage conferred by microgravity was a tremendous reduction in buoyancy-driven convection and sedimentation effects and the subsequent dominance of diffusive mixing.…”

“…52 In translating counter-diffusion style experiments for use in earth-bound laboratories, it is necessary to utilize a strategy to minimize the effects of convection. While smaller capillaries and microfluidic channels can achieve this condition directly as a consequence of their geometry, 49,[55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63] larger capillaries typically utilize a gel matrix to eliminate convection.…”

Phase behavior and crystallogenesis under counter-diffusion conditions of the collagen-model peptide (Pro–Pro–Gly)10

“…Such a supersaturation gradient should give rise to a time distribution of crystals correlated to the distance from the diffusion boundary [32,33]. Unlike for the case of APCF reactors, the long capillaries used with the GCBs ensure the possibility of displaying a supersaturation gradient.…”

pH-Driven synthesis of collagen-silica nanohybrids

“…Anionic proteins have been employed for the crystallization of some minerals for both academic and industrial purposes [1][2][3][4][5]. Biologically speaking, the collagen in bone, and the lyzozime in the shell of egg induce the nucleation [5] of the inorganic crystalline phase, controlling the phase, the crystallographic orientation and other parameters during the growth.…”

“…Biologically speaking, the collagen in bone, and the lyzozime in the shell of egg induce the nucleation [5] of the inorganic crystalline phase, controlling the phase, the crystallographic orientation and other parameters during the growth. The details of the thermodynamics involved in inorganic-protein crystallization have been studied from a theoretical standpoint [6].…”