Practical macromolecular cryocrystallography
- Rigaku Americas Corp., 9009 New Trails Drive, The Woodlands, TX 77381 (United States)
Current methods, reagents and experimental hardware for successfully and reproducibly flash-cooling macromolecular crystals to cryogenic temperatures for X-ray diffraction data collection are reviewed. Cryocrystallography is an indispensable technique that is routinely used for single-crystal X-ray diffraction data collection at temperatures near 100 K, where radiation damage is mitigated. Modern procedures and tools to cryoprotect and rapidly cool macromolecular crystals with a significant solvent fraction to below the glass-transition phase of water are reviewed. Reagents and methods to help prevent the stresses that damage crystals when flash-cooling are described. A method of using isopentane to assess whether cryogenic temperatures have been preserved when dismounting screened crystals is also presented.
- OSTI ID:
- 22375721
- Journal Information:
- Acta crystallographica. Section F, Structural biology communications, Vol. 71, Issue Pt 6; Other Information: PMCID: PMC4461322; PMID: 26057787; PUBLISHER-ID: en5564; PUBLISHER-ID: S2053230X15008304; OAI: oai:pubmedcentral.nih.gov:4461322; Copyright (c) Pflugrath 2015; This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original authors and source are cited.; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2053-230X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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