Two types of amorphous protein particles facilitate crystal nucleation

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1606948114
• Publication Date: 2017-02-14T02:00:27Z
• Authors: Tomoya Yamazaki; Yuki Kimura; Peter G. Vekilov; Erika Furukawa; Manabu Shirai; Hiroaki Matsumoto; Alexander E. S. V...; Katsuo Tsukamoto
• Keywords: Mesoscopic physics; Protein crystallization; Crystal (programming language); Particle (ecology)

Significance The formation of the nuclei protein crystals has been suggested to occur within protein-rich mesoscopic clusters. existence such clusters revealed for many proteins; however, their role in crystallization is still unclear. Our live images a solution using transmission electron microscopy reveal that are solid amorphous particles work as heterogeneous nucleation sites. event crystal starts via another noncrystalline particle, which appears only few seconds before nucleation, is, there two types have different roles crystallization.