We have had really outstanding success using trimethyllead and
samarium acetate as 'quick soak' derivatives. Both are soluble to 100 mM
in most crystallization solutions and have large anomalous signals at the
copper-kalpha wavelength used at most home sources. A quick 30 sec to 5
minute
I was interested in some of the finer points of the reductive methylation
procedure to dimethylate lysine residues for alternative crystallization
possiblilties.
The procedure is to incubate the protein with increasing concentrations
of formaldehyde and dimethylborane complex (as a
