[ccp4bb] Methods to detect/distinguish carbohydrates, lipids, proteins and nucleic acids
Dear CCP4 members: Sorry for the off-topic subject, but I'd appreciate it if you could share your experience with methods that could easily detect or distinguish carbohydrates, proteins, lipids and nucleic acids. The story began with a 2D gel of a sample from IP. Instead of seeing different focused spots, we saw a line of bands across the gel. We then speculate that it might not be protein. Carbohydrate? Basically, we are looking for a simple assay that can tell what we have in the sample. Thanks in advance for sharing your experience! Hua Yuan
[ccp4bb] crystallizing a complex that's sensitive to ionic strength
Dear CCP4 community members, I've been trying to crystallize a protein complex that's very sensitive to ionic strength, i.e., lower salt (~0.3M) will cause precipitation of the complex but higher salt (~0.5 M) breaks the complex apart. The interaction that holds the complex is probably mainly ionic type. The crystals I got so far has only one component of the complex from which all the crystallization conditions have high salt such as 2M Ammonium Sulfate in them. Besides repeatly screening many crystallization conditions, I was wondering whether is any way to work around this problem. Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, Hua
