title: Systematic analysis of supersaturation and lysozyme crystal quality.
abstract: A systematic study of the correlation between supersaturation and protein crystal quality was carried out employing atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray crystallography with synchrotron radiation (SR). The surface morphology and growth rates of hen egg-white (HEW) lysozyme crystals soaked in various supersaturated solutions were first investigated by AFM. The results showed that the formation of two-dimensional islands increased as a function of supersaturation. The growth rate (molecule intake speed) also increased as a function of supersaturation. In order to examine the correlation between the surface morphology, growth rate and the crystal quality, X-ray diffraction experiments were performed. It was confirmed that crystals grown at lower supersaturations diffracted better with higher signal-to-noise ratios, including better agreement between symmetry-related reflections. The results strongly suggested that the molecular misorientation at high supersaturation affected the crystal quality.
authors.affiliation: Department of Innovative and Engineered Materials, Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 4259 Nagatsuta, Midori-ku, Yokohama 226-8502, Japan. yoshizaki.izumi@nasda.go.jp
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Yoshizaki
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Igarashi
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Natsuisaka
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tanaka
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Komatsu
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yoda
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002645:Chickens; D003460:Crystallization; D018360:Crystallography, X-Ray; D005069:Evaluation Studies as Topic; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force; D009113:Muramidase / Q000737:chemistry*; D011786:Quality Control
chemical_list: D009113:Muramidase