Crystallography Research Today is a free monthly online journal that collates and summarizes the latest research about Crystallography, including details on x-ray crystals, techniques, analyses, structures.

Membrane's Eleven: heavy-atom derivatives of membrane-protein crystals.

Morth JP, Sørensen TL, Nissen P

Center for Structural Biology, Department of Molecular Biology, University of Aarhus, Gustav Wieds Vej 10C, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark.

A database has been assembled of heavy-atom derivatives used in the structure determination of membrane proteins. The database can serve as a guide to the design of experiments in the search for heavy-atom derivatives of new membrane-protein crystals. The database pinpoints organomercurials, platinum(II) and trimethyllead compounds as being particularly useful. On the other hand, lanthanide and uranyl compounds are poorly represented, which may be a consequence of these compounds having aggressive effects in crystal-soaking procedures. Furthermore, the database highlights the variety of methods applied in the preparation of heavy-atom-derivatized crystals and in phasing. Cocrystallization can be further exploited. Phases have predominantly been obtained by SIRAS/MIRAS methods rather than SAD/MAD in recent structure determinations.

Published 20 July 2006 in Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr, 62: 877-82.
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