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Biovalley > Newsletter > CrystalChip to screen in situ the structure determination
CrystalChip to screen in situ the structure determination
Nouvelle CrystalChip : Améliorez l'Efficacité de vos Criblages
Introducing the CrystalChip Counter Diffusion Crystallisation Plate!
New, highly effective screening tool enabling in situ structure determination
The counter-diffusion crystallization method directly mixes the protein sample and precipitant solutions by putting them in contact in a restricted geometry. As soon as the protein and precipitant solution are loaded, a continuous concentration gradient is created by liquid-liquid diffusion. This system allows you to explore a wide range of supersaturation conditions in a single experiment while keeping sample volumes to a minimum. The CrystalChip system was developed by Claude Sauter (Institut de Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire IBMC, Strasbourg, France) and made counter-diffusion directly available to researchers by offering a user-friendly and standardized screening tool.
Features and Benefits
Explore a continuum of supersaturation conditions
Minimal sample volume required
Determine crystal structure in situ
Ideal for biomacromolecule crystallization; crystal visualization and storage
Why Choose the CrystalChip for Crystallization?
Use less, get more:Thanks to its eight 4.5 cm long channels, CrystalChip allows you to explore a continuum of supersaturation states. It is highly efficient at screening potential nucleation conditions while using minimal sample amounts. With only 5 chips or 25 µl of purified protein, you can quickly try out 40 crystallization cocktails at infinite concentrations instead of testing hundreds of individual conditions using standard vapor diffusion or batch methods.
Simplify your biocrystallography workflow: CrystalChip can be easily positioned on goniometers and translated in the X-ray beam, allowing for direct analyses of crystals inside the chip at room temperature and without handling.
Increase your 3D structure accuracy: Since all analyses can be done in situ, CrystalChip preserves the crystal quality and diffraction properties, avoids crystal damage due to handling, and allows structure determination in more physiological conditions compared to cryo-crystallography.
Applications
CrystalChip has been successfully used to crystallize various soluble and membrane proteins (enzymes alone and in complex with substrates, nanobodies, proteases, lipases, tRNA synthetases, and hemoglobin) and an RNA duplex.
