Well, if you do NMR you avoid the possible bottlenecks of having to obtain well-diffracting crystals, and having to phase the protein (i.e. obtain SeMet protein crystals or suitable heavy atom derivatives; or a suitable MR model). But instead, you'll need to prepare labelled protein (15N and/or 13C), which is expensive and for which your protein needs to be able to be expressed in minimal medium, and your protein will need to be very soluble, monodisperse (in general monomeric) and stable in a minimal NMR-compatible buffer for data collections lasting for hours. Assigning all the protons and calculating the final structure can also be months of work, while a high-resolution crystal structure can be finished in days, if the above-mentioned bottle-necks can be overcome.
On 9 Jun 2013, at 17:36, Theresa Hsu wrote: > Dear all > > A question for the cross-trained members of this forum - for small sized > proteins, is NMR better than crystallography in terms of data collection > (having crystals in the first place) and data processing? How about membrane > proteins? > > I would appreciate replies to the board, instead of off-board, to allow for a > good discussion. > > Thank you. > > Theresa
