Counterdiffusion protein crystallisation in microgravity and its observation with PromISS (protein microscope for the international space station)

Zegers, Ingrid; Carotenuto, Luigi; Evrard, C.; García-Ruiz, J. M.; Gieter, Philippe De; Gonzales-Ramires, Luis; Istasse, Eric; Legros, Jean Claude; Martial, Joseph; Minetti, Christophe; Otálora, Fermı́n; Queeckers, Patrick; Schockaert, Cédric; VandeWeerdt, C.; Willaert, Ronnie; Wyns, Lode; Yourassowsky, Catherine; Dubois, Frank

doi:10.1007/bf02870402

Cited by 17 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Crystals grown in a diffusive environment, created using microfluidics, gels or microgravity, are believed to be of superior quality. ,− It is important to evaluate whether the effect is significant, and if so, what processes are involved. The protein crystals used in this analysis were obtained during experiments performed on the International Space Station (ISS) using the Protein Microscope for the International Space Station (PromISS) facility . This instrument uses digital holography and Mach-Zender interferometry to investigate the depletion zone model for growing crystals both quantitatively and qualitatively .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a Definition of X-ray Crystal Quality

Maes

Evrard

Gavira

et al. 2008

Crystal Growth & Design

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Crystal X-ray quality is usually evaluated by looking at data quality parameters such as (relative) Wilson B-factor, resolution, R-factors, signal-to-noise ratio, and others. As these parameters are correlated, most studies focus on one or two of them. As part of a study of the effects of microgravity on X-ray quality, full data sets of 35 ferritin crystals (17 PromISS-4 "space" crystals and 18 from the ground control) were collected. Sixty-three parameters commonly used as indicative of X-ray data quality taken from the output of the processing, scaling, and merging software packages were analyzed. This highly dimensional "quality parameter dataset" was reduced using a principal component analysis. About 78% of the variability in the data set could be explained with the first four principal components. A score-plot in this four-dimensional space clearly showed two tendencies, one for the crystals grown in space and one for the ground crystals. The differences between the two groups are observed irrespective of the software package. They can be attributed to the first principal component and reflect the superior quality of the space crystals. Experimental SectionProtein. Type I horse spleen ferritin was obtained in saline solution at 85 mg/mL (cat. no. F-4503; lot: 084K7001) from Sigma-Aldrich (Steinheim, Germany). To remove higher order oligomers, 16 a gel filtration was performed using a GE Healthcare Superdex 75 HR 10/ 30 column (Freiburg, Germany) with a 0.2 M sodium acetate pH 4.5 mobile phase. Monomeric fractions were pooled and concentrated to 30 mg/mL. The protein solution was dialyzed against a buffer of 100 mM NaAc pH 5.0 with 200 mM ammonium sulfate and concentrated to 18 mg/mL. Protein concentrations were determined using the Bradford assay kit from Sigma-Aldrich.Crystallization. The crystallization experiments were performed in specially developed reactors (Figure 1a) which were designed to allow a "full geometry counter-diffusion" setup. 17 Reactors have a precipitant volume that is initially separated from the protein volume. When the release mechanism is activated, precipitant and protein are free to diffuse toward each other.Six reactors were launched on Progress 20P on December 21, 2005, installed in the PromISS instrument on board of the ISS, activated for 15 days, and returned to Earth on board of Soyuz 11S on April 8, 2006. The PromISS instrument was operated in the Microgravity Science Glovebox in the US Destiny Laboratory by Expedition 12commander Wiliam McArthur, who was also responsible for the reactor activation. A control experiment using the same conditions was performed on Earth at the same time at the ULB Microgravity Research Center in Brussels (Belgium). Care was taken to keep the same conditions (concentrations, temperature) for the space and ground

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a Definition of X-ray Crystal Quality

Maes

Evrard

Gavira

et al. 2008

Crystal Growth & Design

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“…This technique could be useful to optimize the transmission of digital holograms from the recording head and the display unit being in separate locations [9,10]. Firstly, we will show how the holograms are multiplexed and, then, how the multiplexed hologram is processed in order to reconstruct all one hundred amplitude and phase maps.…”

Section: All Numerical Multiplexing/demultiplexingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Multiplexing and demultiplexing of digital holograms recorded in microscopic configuration

Paturzo

Memmolo

Tulino

et al. 2009

Modeling Aspects in Optical Metrology II

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We investigate the possibility to multiplexing and de-multiplexing numerically digital holograms recorded by means of a Mach-Zehnder interferometric microscope. The digital holograms are multiplexed and de-multiplexed thanks to the unique property of the digital holography to numerically manage the complex wavefields in different reconstruction planes. Two kind of multiplexing techniques are investigated. The first one allows to multiplex up to hundreds of digital holograms retrieving correctly quantitative information about their amplitude and phase maps. This technique can be used to optimize the storage of a large number of digital holograms or their transmission process from a recording head to a remote display unit. The second method consists in the angular multiplexing and de-multiplexing of several digital holograms. This technique has been performed rotating numerically one hologram at different angles and adding all the rotated holograms to obtain a single synthetic digital hologram. However, for this technique, a multiplexed digital hologram can be also obtained rotating the CCD array during the holograms recording process. The distortions caused by the multiplexing/de-multiplexing procedures has been evaluated for both the techniques.

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“…On the one hand, ESA decided to commission the construction and use of another facility for in situ fundamental crystal growth studies in space, the Protein Microscope for the International Space Station (PromISS/6 reactors), that implemented only counter-diffusion experiments. 6 On the other hand, due to the robustness and low costs of the implementations of the technique, 29 our laboratory proposed the construction of another device, the Granada Crystallization Facility (GCF/138 experiments), in the line of previous crystallization platforms, that is, focusing on the optimization of the maximum number of experiments possible.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Granada Crystallization Facility-2: A Versatile Platform for Crystallization in Space

González-Ramírez

Carrera

Gavira

et al. 2008

Crystal Growth & Design

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ࠗ w This paper contains enhanced objects available on the Internet at http://pubs.acs.org/crystal. ABSTRACT:A facility for crystallization experiments in space named Granada Crystallization Facility-2 (GCF-2) is presented. GCF-2 is an inexpensive and compact modular platform featuring a high experiment density (number of experiments per liter of useful volume), a temperature control system, and a complete independence from human intervention after integration, which makes GCF-2 equally suited for manned and unmanned flights. The facility can be used for commercial quality crystal production and for fundamental crystal growth studies using ex situ diagnostics. The changes incorporated to the previous version and the complementary hardware (electronics and reactors) used are described. Also included is information on the performance of the facility during the European Space Agency FOTON-M3 mission on board the Russian unmanned FOTON capsule.

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Counterdiffusion protein crystallisation in microgravity and its observation with PromISS (protein microscope for the international space station)

Cited by 17 publications

References 10 publications

Toward a Definition of X-ray Crystal Quality

Toward a Definition of X-ray Crystal Quality

Multiplexing and demultiplexing of digital holograms recorded in microscopic configuration

Granada Crystallization Facility-2: A Versatile Platform for Crystallization in Space

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