Influence of Vessel Surfaces on the Nucleation of Protein Crystals

Abstract

Treatment of vessel surfaces is common practice in many protein crystallization protocols. The research reported here shows that such treatments can have a significant effect on the resulting kinetics of protein crystallization. Untreated and silanized low-protein-binding polystyrene wells were used in batch isothermal crystallization experiments with the model protein lysozyme. An automated photomicroscopy apparatus was used to measure the induction time as a function of supersaturation, and the corresponding nucleation kinetics were determined and modeled using classical nucleation theory. The use of silanized wells led to a transition from homogeneous nucleation to heterogeneous nucleation that is not observed for the untreated polystyrene wells. The silanizing compounds are similar to those used in high-performance liquid chromatography stationary phases for protein separations. While the silanizing compounds beneficially modify the surface tension in the crystallization vessels, they also inadvertently create a surface conducive to heterogeneous nucleation, which affects the interpretation of crystallization experiments.

The Study of the Mechanism of Protein Crystallization in Space by Using Microchannel to Simulate Microgravity Environment

“…The crystal morphologies and crystal growth rates of the grown crystals were compared and the differences were analyzed in detail. Note that at the high supersaturation condition, the formation of a critical nucleus was easier in the bulk solution rather than on the wall surface [59]. Hence, lysozyme crystals were nucleated and grown using the isothermal batch method to reduce the influence of the microchannel surface on the crystallization nucleation.…”

Energy Barrier for Protein Adhesion and Crystal Nucleation on Flat Alien Substrates

“…Possible result of such interactions is arrangement of protein molecules at the interface into 2D or 3D crystal. Protein crystal formation could be promoted by mineral substrates [18,19], lipid layers [20][21][22][23] or chemically modified substrates [1,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. Here we present data for the energy difference ∆E between the average energy of protein molecules in solution and the energy, required in order to adhere to the given substrate.…”

Theoretical study of hierarchical structures and heredity effect of silicon solidifying on carbon nanotube

“…1 To promote nucleation in liquids and glasses, small particles of "impurity" are often deliberately introduced as a grain-refining agent for cast metals. [2][3][4][5][6] The interplay of the driving force of crystallization and the interfacial free energy will benefit the formation of stable crystalline nucleus. [7][8][9] The presence of foreign particles contributes typically much to this process.…”

“…The growth of the silicon atoms on the surface of CNT is carried out with classical MD. The time step is 1.0 fs and the maximum iterations are chosen as 10 5 . Nose thermostat is used to control temperature.…”