Dehydration Converts DsbG Crystal Diffraction from Low to High Resolution

• DOI: 10.1016/s0969-2126(03)00005-4
• Publication Date: 2003-02-17T21:25:27Z
• Authors: Begoña Heras; Melissa A. Edeling; Karl A. Byriel; Alun Jones; Satish Raina; Jennifer L. Martin
• Keywords: Crystal (programming language); Protein crystallization

Diffraction quality crystals are essential for crystallographic studies of protein structure, and the production of poorly diffracting crystals is often regarded as a dead end in the process. Here we show a dramatic improvement of poorly diffracting DsbG crystals allowing high-resolution diffraction data measurement. Before dehydration, the crystals are fragile and the diffraction pattern is streaky, extending to 10 A resolution. After dehydration, there is a spectacular improvement, with the diffraction pattern extending to 2 A resolution. This and other recent results show that dehydration is a simple, rapid, and inexpensive approach to convert poor quality crystals into diffraction quality crystals.