Orly,
 
you might want to try and rescreen. I had problems getting high resolution diffraction for my 3C protease crystals from foot-and-mouth disease virus during my PhD. My initial crystals gave anisotropic diffraction 3.5 angstrom at best in 1 direction and about 6 in the other. I managed to solve the structure eventually by developing a novel ''trick'' for improving the crystals (I got 1.9 angstrom in the end). It's very easy!!
 
It involves mixing the original crystallisation condition back into the sparse matrix screens. My experience was that it RAPIDLY allowed me to find useful additives from the screens. My 1 year of searching for additives ended with my mixing trick and I got high resolution diffraction within 1 WEEK of trying.
 
Look at my paper Birtley and Curry Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr. 2005 May;61(Pt 5):646-50. Epub 2005 Apr 20.
 
Good luck and let me know if it's as successful for you as it was for me.
 
All the best.
 
Dr James Birtley


From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Orly Dym
Sent: Sun 27/11/2005 08:31
To: [email protected]
Subject: [ccp4bb]:


I have beautiful reasonably big crystals from a protein which diffract to 6A at the most.
I have tried adding additives, crystallizing in different methods (hanging, drops, sitting drops and microbatch under oil).
The crystals grow over night and contain high percent of water (they are very fragile).
I also tried different methods of dehydration (using different PEG's, MPD, glycerol and so on).
Currently I am trying to grow them at 4C.

Any other ideas as to what I should try in order to improve the resolution?

Thanks

Orly

Dr. Orly Dym
Israel Structural Proteomics Center
Department of Structural Biology
Weizmann Institute of Science

http://www.weizmann.ac.il/ISPC

972-8-934-3759 - Tel
972-8-934-4159 - Fax



Reply via email to