Improving Protein Crystal Quality via Mechanical Vibration

Abstract

Growing high quality protein crystals enables higher quality high-resolution structure determination by X-ray diffraction. In this paper, we show that mechanical vibration could be an effective and useful tool for improving protein crystal quality. The crystal quality of the selected proteins was examined using X-ray diffraction. The quality comparison of the crystals grown with and without vibration verified that mechanical vibration not only enhanced the morphology of the crystals but also improved the crystal quality. Therefore, we propose that mechanical vibration could be a useful alternative tool for obtaining high quality-diffracting protein crystals.

Protein Crystallization Irradiated by Audible Sound: The Effect of Varying Sound Frequency

“…Since protein crystallization is highly sensitive to environmental factors (sound, light, electric and magnetic fields, gravitational field, heat, mechanical vibration, and so on), − investigation of the effects of the environments on protein crystallization is essential for good control of the crystallization process to produce desirable results. Audible sound has been shown to be an environmental factor that affects the process of protein crystallization .…”

Comparison of the Quality of Protein Crystals Grown by CLPC Seeds Method

“…In this method, seed crystals are mainly inoculated into the pre-balanced protein crystal solution in metastable state, and the nucleation process is shortened by introducing foreign seed crystals to induce protein nucleation at low supersaturation, so as to obtain a highly ordered protein structure. To improve the quality of protein crystals by using tools such as electric fields [4,5], magnetic fields, ultrasound waves, light, mechanical vibration [6], microgravity [7,8], and nucleants [9], has always been studied. The addition of nucleants is one of the most commonly used methods for improving the quality of protein crystals.…”

Utilization of Cyclodextrins and Its Derivative Particles as Nucleants for Protein Crystallization

“…Protein crystallization is a highly useful process in that it can not only prepare protein crystals for the structural determination of protein molecules (one of the prevailing methods to obtain high resolution molecular structures of proteins) but also provide highly purified proteins for various purposes including biopharmaceuticals, the food industry, chemical agents, catalysis, and environmental engineering . Since the crystallization of a protein is frequently difficult, the development of methods to enhance protein crystallization is always important. − …”