Acta Cryst. (2006). D62, 520-526 [ doi:10.1107/S0907444906009012 ]
Abstract: Determination of a suitable cryoprotectant agent condition is one of the time-consuming processes in protein X-ray crystallography. The adaptability of two novel versatile cryoprotectants (oil- and water-based types) has been evaluated by cryodiffraction experiments using crystals of five different proteins. The results suggest that complementary use of both oil- and water-based cryoprotectants enables the successful cryoprotection of protein crystals. Since the versatile cryoprotectants do not contain crystallization solution, rapid and efficient preparation of heavy-atom derivatives is possible with these cryoprotectants in the presence of heavy-atom reagents. Four heavy-atom reagents [K2PtCl4, HgCl2, KAu(CN)2 and K2Pt(CN)4] were examined and could be stored with sufficient derivatizing capabilities for over one month in the versatile cryoprotectants.
Keywords: cryoprotectant; Paratone-N; paraffin oil; hyaluronic acid; heavy atoms; structural genomics.
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