Disappearance of crystals is fairly common and not specific to DDM or indeed any detergent as it also occurs for soluble proteins. Even after reaching "equilibrium" conditions still change (evaporation, instability of components, proteolysis, etc). The inverse also happens, that is formation of regular crystals from irregular, "blobby' ones. I assume you tested the crystals before they disappear? If you hope they get better upon prolonged incubation: I don't think there is much you can do to prevent their disappearance.
Bert ________________________________________ From: CCP4 bulletin board [[email protected]] on behalf of Yibin Lin [[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, June 15, 2013 8:48 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [ccp4bb] crystals disappear Hi forks, I got some membrane protein crystals in DDM. However, after one month, these crystals change to Irregular shape, and have not birefringent in polarized Light. Do anybody know why? Does the effect of DDM? Contain too much detergent? Thanks, Zhang Peng
