Improved diffraction of antithrombin crystals grown in microgravity.
Crystals of antithrombin were grown both on earth and in microgravity aboard US Space Shuttle Flight STS-67. The quality of crystals grown in both environments was highly variable and many could not be indexed. The microgravity crystals, however, generally diffracted better, as demonstrated by a novel procedure that estimates the resolution of the Bragg scatter from single diffraction images, without requiring knowledge of the cell dimensions of the crystal. Whereas the best earth-grown crystals never diffracted beyond 3 angstroms resolution, the best microgravity crystal diffracted to 2.6 angstroms. The improvement, demonstrated here by a comparison of 23 microgravity and 12 earth-grown crystals, is attributed to better ordered crystal growth in microgravity, although other factors may have contributed also.
Wardell
M R
MR
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Washington University in St Louis, MO 63110-1093, USA. mrw@patmos.wustl.edu
Skinner
R
R
Carter
D C
DC
Twigg
P D
PD
Abrahams
J P
JP
D000990:Antithrombin III / Q000737:chemistry*; D003460:Crystallization; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D012107:Research Design; D013026:Space Flight; D014893:Weightlessness
D000990:Antithrombin III