I couldn’t agree more with Patrick which is often the case. To echo some of his comments, in the High-Throughput Crystallization Screening Center we see many examples where the visual images of initial crystallization hits are very poor and experienced (or inexperienced) crystallographers would typically ignore them. SONICC and UV two photon fluorescence images can indicate something far more promising. Optimization of the visually ‘crappy’ crystals (or even things that really don’t look like crystals to the eye) that have strong SONICC or UV two photon fluorescence very often produces beautiful results. We published a short paper on this “The detection and subsequent volume optimization of biological nanocrystals, Luft JR, et al.. Struct Dyn. 2015 May 15;2(4):041710 and have seen many examples since. The crystallization research page of the High-Throughput Screening Center (http://getacrystal.org) has a link to this paper under the Crystallization Research section and there is a more extensive literature related to this research are on the website in my signature.
Excuse the shameless plug, but if you don’t have SONICC and UV-two photon detection, this is a standard part of the crystallization screening center available to all and run by Dr. Sarah Bowman (https://hwi.buffalo.edu/scientist-directory/sbowman/) – Details at http://getacrystal.org. There is also some news on automated outcome classification just to put a teaser of things to come out there. Best, Eddie Edward Snell Ph.D. Biological Small Angle Scattering Theory and Practice, Eaton E. Lattman, Thomas D. Grant, and Edward H. Snell. Available through all good bookshops, or direct from Oxford University Press Director of the NSF BioXFEL Science and Technology Center President and CEO Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute BioInnovations Chaired Professorship, University at Buffalo, SUNY 700 Ellicott Street, Buffalo, NY 14203-1102 hwi.buffalo.edu Phone: (716) 898 8631 Fax: (716) 898 8660 Skype: eddie.snell Email: [email protected] Webpage: https://hwi.buffalo.edu/scientist-directory/snell/ [cid:[email protected]] Heisenberg was probably here! From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Patrick Shaw Stewart Sent: Friday, July 6, 2018 7:08 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Please share your experience about "ugly" crystals showing good diffraction Hi All I have a comment, based on my old supervisor's explanation, which seemed to make sense. Crystals usually grow layer by layer. Once a new layer is formed it quickly expands to cover the whole surface. That's why crystals normally have flat surfaces and sharp edges - the layers/steps expand rapidly until they get to the edges. However it doesn't have to be like that. Sometimes new layers can form roughly as quickly as the previous layers can spread. The result is crystals with curved surfaces - or even just blobs. Just because the new layers form at a rate that is comparable to the spreading doesn't mean that the crystals won't be ordered, and won't diffract well. Once I understood that I understood what I was seeing better when I checked my drops. Best wishes Patrick On 5 July 2018 at 22:06, Sanishvili, Ruslan <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Hi Anirban, It would be great if you could share the compilation of relevant responses to your request. I think many others in the community could use these examples for educational purposes. Best, Nukri Ruslan Sanishvili (Nukri), Ph.D. Macromolecular Crystallographer GM/CA@APS X-ray Science Division, ANL 9700 S. Cass Ave. Lemont, IL 60439 Tel: (630)252-0665 Fax: (630)252-0667 [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> ________________________________ From: CCP4 bulletin board <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of Anirban Banerjee <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2018 7:07 PM To: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [ccp4bb] Please share your experience about "ugly" crystals showing good diffraction Dear all, Apologies for the non-CCP4 related question. If you have concrete experience about visually unappealing, i.e. ugly crystals ( your own take on ugly is fine) diffracting better than comparably similar sized nicer looking crystals of the same protein, will you please share here ? Even better if that led to a published structure. Might you also have pictures ? We have all heard anecdotes about not using visual appearance to judge the quality of crystals as far as their ability to give good diffraction data is concerned but I am trying to gather some concrete pointers here to motivate trainees. Thanks very much for any help. Best, Anirban P.S. I know that there is probably a lot of thought and wisdom on this this specific topic but I am really looking for actual experience. ________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CCP4BB list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1 ________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CCP4BB list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1 -- [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> Douglas Instruments Ltd. Douglas House, East Garston, Hungerford, Berkshire, RG17 7HD, UK Directors: Peter Baldock, Patrick Shaw Stewart http://www.douglas.co.uk Tel: 44 (0) 148-864-9090 US toll-free 1-877-225-2034 Regd. England 2177994, VAT Reg. GB 480 7371 36 ________________________________ To unsubscribe from the CCP4BB list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1 ######################################################################## To unsubscribe from the CCP4BB list, click the following link: https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?SUBED1=CCP4BB&A=1
