Hi Lisa, I will second James' suggestion. DNA packing seems really important, and making the DNA length as X half turns is usually good for packing (X=2, 3, 4 ...).
Another thing you might want to try is Hoogstein base pairing. Cheers, Xun On Wednesday, February 15, 2012, James Stroud <[email protected]> wrote: > Use 5' overhangs of two and make the DNA 10, 11, 15, 20, 21 25, 26, 30, or 31 bases in length. Count the overhangs in the length. > > If you don't know where to start, try 15, 25, and 26 first because they will make 2(1) screws, which are good for crystals. > > James > > > On Feb 15, 2012, at 1:06 AM, LISA wrote: > >> Hi all, >> >> I have a DNA binding protein. I can get crystals when I mix 8-28 nt dsDNA with my protein. But neither of them has good diffraction. Some biochemical data said the longer of DNA, the tigher of the binding betwwen DNA and my protein. The binding is not sequence-specfic. Does anyone have suggestion of the optimization? What is the good length of DNA for crystallization? >> Thank you. >> >> Lisa > -- Department of Molecular and Structural Biochemistry North Carolina State University
