What about developing a theory of how crystallization happens, i.e., what does the microscopic “picture” look like when crystals are forming, then predicting based on that picture? I remember looking into these things about ten years ago, and there were some cool things being done with various scattering methods and with AFM, but am not sure now what is the state of that art.
It would seem to me that crystallization is the search for intermolecular docking sites of sufficiently good (albeit presumably weak) affinity and consistent with the formation of a 3D lattice. I wonder what the affinity of these sites is, actually—I guess somewhere in the micromolar range, based on usual protein concentrations under crystallization conditions (10 mg/ml of a 40 kD protein is 250 uM). Presumably the various docking sites would change affinity based on the crystallization conditions, which would explain why some crystallization conditions work, others don’t? Maybe a systematic look at all crystallization contacts in the PDB might yield some insight into crystallization? Maybe it’s already been done? JPK ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the CCP4BB list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1
