Protein crystal growing

Recall that stable protein crystals contain a large amount of both ordered and disordered water molecules. As a result, the proteins in the crystal are still in the aqueous state, subject to the same solvent effects that stabilize the structure in solution. Viewed in this light, it is less surprising that proteins retain their solution structure in the crystal. 

Another vital type of ligand is a heavy-metal atom or ion. Crystals of protein/ heavy-metal complexes, often called heavy-atom derivatives, are usually needed in order to solve the phase problem mentioned in Chapter 2 (Section VI.F). I will show in Chapter 6 that, for the purpose of obtaining phases, it is crucial that heavy-atom derivatives possess the same unit-cell dimensions and symmetry, and the same protein conformation, as crystals of the pure protein, which in discussions of derivatives are called native crystals. So in most structure projects, the crystallographer must produce both native and derivative crystals under the same or very similar circumstances. 

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Whereas inorganic crystals can often be grown to dimensions of several centimeters or larger, it is frequently impossible to grow protein crystals as large as 1 mm in their shortest dimension. In addition, larger crystals are often twinned (two or more crystals grown into each other at different orientations)... 

Figure 3.2 Growing crystals by the hanging-drop method. The droplet hanging under the cover slip contains buffer, precipitant, protein, and, if all goes well, growing protein crystals.

The commonly used protein crystallization methods achieve and maintain supersaturation in several ways (Fig. 2). Several articles and books that describe methods used to grow protein crystals are referred to in Section I. The objective in this section is to briefly review methods as they relate to the phenomena described above. Examples of proteins crystallized by each method are given. More complete listings of crystallized proteins are compiled in McPherson, 1982 and Gilliland and Bickham, 1990. 

The simplest technique used to grow protein crystals is the batch method in which the protein is mixed with salts or other precipitants to achieve supersaturation (Fig. 2), and the vessel is sealed and set aside until crystals appear. Frequently, the supersaturation point required to induce nucleation is empirically determined by observing the onset of transient turbidity as powdered salt is progressively added to the solution. Crystals of hen egg white lysozyme used for most systematic studies of protein crystallization are grown by batch methods (Blundell and Johnson, 1976). Mouse pancreatic ribonuclease (Perry and Palmer, 1988) and the biotin operon repressor (Brennan et al., 1989) represent recent examples of use of the batch method. 

Fig. 1. The vapor diffusion method for growing protein crystals. Water equilibrates from the more dilute protein solution in the drop into the more concentrated solution at the bottom of the beaker. This concentrates the solution slowly in the hanging drop.

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