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It is fairly common to get RNA (or DNA) crystals in high concentrations of
monovalent cations, including Na+, Li+, and even NH4+. More surprising to
us was that several of the ribozymes function quite happily in the
presence of monovalent cations that were thought to require divalent
cations for cleaving.
One thing you will want to be aware of is that simple RNA hairpins have a
high propensity to crystallize as dimeric duplexes with mismatches in the
middle corresponding to the hairpin region.
The anion is usually not relevant, but in the case of citrate, it can
chelate Mg++. For that reason, I tend not to use it in screens, but there
is no particularly fundamental reason why citrate should be unusual, apart
from that.
HTH,
Bill
On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Hi folks,
I appear to have grown some crystals of an RNA hairpin using 1.4 M sodium
citrate.
Has anybody else out there been able to get crystals of RNA or DNA using sodium
citrate as the precipitant ?
This result seems to be rather unusual to me.
Please get in touch if you know of any similar, successful crystallization
conditions.
Cheers,
Ray
email [EMAIL PROTECTED]
