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Automated systems for protein crystallization.

Joel Bard1, Kimberly Ercolani, Kristine Svenson

  • 1Structural Biology and Computational Chemistry, Department of Chemical and Screening Sciences, Wyeth Research, 85 Bolton Street, Cambridge, MA 02140, USA. jbard@wyeth.com

Methods (San Diego, Calif.)
|August 25, 2004
PubMed
Summary

Automated systems streamline protein crystallization for X-ray diffraction, reducing protein needs and manual effort. This review covers automated methods and screening approaches for improved crystal growth.

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Area of Science:

  • Structural biology
  • Biochemistry
  • Crystallography

Background:

  • Protein structure determination via X-ray diffraction relies heavily on high-quality crystal growth.
  • Manual crystallization experiments are protein-intensive and labor-intensive.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To review the fundamentals of automated protein crystallization.
  • To present comparative results of various screening approaches using an automated system.

Main Methods:

  • Development and utilization of an automated system for hanging drop crystallization experiments.
  • Robotic systems for solution preparation, drop setup, and automated imaging.
  • A novel software package (RoCKS) for managing the crystallization workflow.

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Main Results:

  • Automation significantly reduces the protein required for crystallization screening.
  • Automated systems alleviate the tedium associated with manual experiment setup.
  • Comparative analysis of different screening strategies was performed.

Conclusions:

  • Automated protein crystallization is a viable strategy to improve the efficiency and success rate of crystal growth.
  • The reviewed automated system and software offer a comprehensive solution for managing crystallization experiments.
  • Further research into optimized screening approaches is warranted.