Tailored Hydrogel Membranes for Efficient Protein Crystallization

Abstract

Crystallization still represents the bottleneck in the process of protein structure determination at high resolution, despite high-throughput structural genomics programs requiring optimized crystallization strategies regarding crystal quality, time, success rate, reproducibility, and used protein amount. On the other hand, the development of suitable materials for controlled heterogeneous nucleation might facilitate biomacromolecular crystallization in a variety of experimental conditions which are not conventionally fruitful. Here, the possibility to fabricate hydrogel membranes displaying controlled chemical composition and nanostructure and to use them as heterogeneous supports for biomacromolecular crystallization is demonstrated. Diverse gel morphologies are obtained by controlling phase separation kinetics during gel layer formation on membrane support. These composite materials are found to increase the effi ciency of the crystallization process so that crystals with enhanced diffraction properties are produced at lower protein concentration than conventional technique, thus affording the possibility to improve current approaches to protein crystallization and to be adapted to specifi c targets.

Enzyme Crystals and Hydrogel Composite Membranes as New Active Food Packaging Material

“…In the stirred system, the expected final protein concentration (0.06 mg mL −1 for crystals grown under crystallization condition 3) is reached after 60 min; the observed decrease in protein concentration in solution can be ascribed to the absorption of single protein molecules into the hydrogel matrix, in agreement with previous studies . In quiescent conditions, increases in protein concentration are also detected after 60 min.…”

“…In all cases, crystals have grown after one day and reached their final size in one week, independently on the support or the crystallization conditions used (see below). PP and PVA were chosen because they are not toxic, can be used for food applications, and were proven to be suitable supports for protein crystallization . PP is an hydrophobic membrane material commonly used for membrane contactors applications such as membrane distillation and membrane crystallization.…”

Bioinspired Synthesis of CaCO3 Superstructures through a Novel Hydrogel Composite Membranes Mineralization Platform: A Comprehensive View

“…In this study, hydrogel composite membranes (composites) are fabricated by the direct synthesis of a tailored gel layer on the surface of a polymeric porous support, according to previously described procedures (Table S1, Supporting Information) . HCMs are then used as novel biomimetic mineralization platforms for CO 2 capture and controlled delivery to the hydrogel phase, which is in contact with a CaCl 2 solution ( Figure ).…”

A novel membrane distillation response technology for nucleation detection, metastable zone width measurement and analysis

“…Role of hydrophobic membrane on the nucleation generation should be investigated in depth. Preparation of superhydrophobic membrane could enhance the testing efficiency of MDR technology, some relevant research had been launched and the inspiring results were obtained on the preparation of superhydrophobic membrane (Meng et al, 2014(Meng et al, , 2015bProfio et al, 2014). In addition, further study would expand the research field of nucleation on the interface with ultralow surface energy, which was also an attractive and vivid topic.…”