Abstract

The Importance of Miniaturization and Automation for the Crystallization of Biological Macromolecules

Fabrice Gorrec, Crystallization/Automation Scientist, MRC-LMB

X-ray crystallography is used on a daily basis to solve crystal structures of biological macromolecules, macromolecular complexes and entire viruses. In addition to increasing our knowledge in biology, macromolecular X-ray crystallography opens perspectives in rational drug design. In the last two decades, crystallographers have seen a tremendous increase in structures being deposited in the PDB (Protein Data Bank). This, despite the fact that poor yields are observed when producing purified samples and quality crystals. These two essential steps have become the bottlenecks of the process of structure determination because the samples are increasingly more challenging. Miniaturized and automated crystallization assays are constantly being developed in order to enable progress and keep structural biology in the fast lane. Miniaturization enables screening against a multitude of crystallization conditions and hence increases the yield of quality crystals while the availability of a sample is limited. Automation enables to proceed fast, accurately and effectively while the samples are poorly stable and reproducibility can be an issue.