Advanced Methods of Protein Crystallization

Abstract

This chapter provides a review of different advanced methods that help to increase the success rate of a crystallization project, by producing larger and higher quality single crystals for determination of macromolecular structures by crystallographic methods. For this purpose, the chapter is divided into three parts. The first part deals with the fundamentals for understanding the crystallization process through different strategies based on physical and chemical approaches. The second part presents new approaches involved in more sophisticated methods not only for growing protein crystals but also for controlling the size and orientation of crystals through utilization of electromagnetic fields and other advanced techniques. The last section deals with three different aspects: the importance of microgravity, the use of ligands to stabilize proteins, and the use of microfluidics to obtain protein crystals. All these advanced methods will allow the readers to obtain suitable crystalline samples for high-resolution X-ray and neutron crystallography.

Keywords: Counter-diffusion techniques; Crystal growth in gels; Electric fields; Magnetic fields; Protein crystallization.