Membrane proteins, such as G-protein-coupled receptors, are known to be much more difficult to purify and crystallise than soluble proteins due to their native environment within the lipid bilayer of the cell membrane. The in meso (lipidic cubic phase or LCP) crystallisation technique has revolutionised the process of crystallising membrane proteins. This method utilises highly viscous lipid mesophases to contain the membrane proteins for crystallisation.

Automation of protein crystallography screening has contributed significantly to the rapid progress of crystallography based structural biology. Automation allows samples to be screened using smaller volumes of both protein and screen solutions, reducing costs and saving valuable protein. Additional benefits include increased throughput and accuracy. One of the challenges to automating this process is the necessity to accurately pipette solutions of varying viscosities

A total of about 140 different proteins have been commissioned and 62 have been crystallized with a quality suitable for X-ray diffraction (45%). On a per-drop basis, 300 crystallization experiments have been successful, representing an over¬all success rate of 3%. PEG 3350 was the precipitant for 20, making it the single most successful crystallization agent.

Production of soluble protein is one of the major bottlenecks that precede crystallographic studies.During the last years several techniques and strategies have been developed to address this problem. However, many of them imply an economical cost and technologies that are not always available. We will describe a general plan for protein solubility analysis by using a combination of four different but complementary strategies. In this plan, different constructs of a protein interest are designed

Crystallising proteins, required for structure determination by X-ray diffraction, is a difficult and labour-intensive task. The mosquito liquid handler (TTP LabTech) is ideally suited to automating the complex set-ups required for microseeding due to its precide handling of extremely low volumes of even viscous solutions, and its ability to perform multiple aspirations and dispenses with each pipette.

During recent years large improvements in software functionality and its ease-of-use have made single crystal X-ray structure determination easier than ever. These days most structures can be measured, processed, solved and refined using well selected defaults with no or little crystallographic knowledge. Recently, microfocus sources and CCD detectors both air-cooled, have entered the marketplace. Combining these innovations with an automated sample loader and an intelligent graphical user inte

The number of life science investigators utilizing crystallography in their research increases every year. Synchrotrons are an invaluable resource for structural work but not everyone has unlimited access to a beamline. In-house diffraction systems complement synchrotron access and can provide increased productivity in the home lab. In recent years, the performance and versatility of in-house systems has greatly improved. The enhanced performance allows data collection on demanding projects such

Obtaining structural information on fragment-protein target is a key factor and also a major limitation. We’ve used MED-SuMo and MED-Hybridise to query and mine the PDB seeking for similar interaction surfaces. MED-portions were used to design novel scaffolds (GPCR) and decorate a given scaffold (kinase). We have analysed the scaffolds in regard to their diversity, their presence in PubChem, PDB and other libraries.

A continuously-fed crystallization chamber is manufactured to allow phase diagram visualization. This microfluidic system allows the experimenter to screen a large range of salt and protein concentrations in one experiment. This allows the experimenter to predict the protein phase diagram in a single experiment. A continuous-feed crystallization chamber has been successfully fabricated and characterized in terms of its flow profile, and has successfully predicted the phase diagram for lysozyme.

mosquito® is a positive displacement liquid handling system capable of pipetting solutions with a high degree of accuracy (to within 5%) and precision (CVs of <10%) in the nanolitre range. Here, we demonstrate mosquito’s ability to dispense accurately low volumes of organic solvents of low surface tension and to re-dissolve compounds which have been previously dried in storage wells.