title: Advances in nanocrystallography as a proteomic tool.
abstract: In order to overcome the difficulties and hurdles too much often encountered in crystallizing a protein with the conventional techniques, our group has introduced the innovative Langmuir-Blodgett (LB)-based crystallization, as a major advance in the field of both structural and functional proteomics, thus pioneering the emerging field of the so-called nanocrystallography or nanobiocrystallography. This approach uniquely combines protein crystallography and nanotechnologies within an integrated, coherent framework that allows one to obtain highly stable protein crystals and to fully characterize them at a nano- and subnanoscale. A variety of experimental techniques and theoretical/semi-theoretical approaches, ranging from atomic force microscopy, circular dichroism, Raman spectroscopy and other spectroscopic methods, microbeam grazing-incidence small-angle X-ray scattering to in silico simulations, bioinformatics, and molecular dynamics, has been exploited in order to study the LB-films and to investigate the kinetics and the main features of LB-grown crystals. When compared to classical hanging-drop crystallization, LB technique appears strikingly superior and yields results comparable with crystallization in microgravity environments. Therefore, the achievement of LB-based crystallography can have a tremendous impact in the field of industrial and clinical/therapeutic applications, opening new perspectives for personalized medicine. These implications are envisaged and discussed in the present contribution.
authors.affiliation: Nanobiotechnology and Biophysics Laboratories (NBL), Department of Experimental Medicine (DIMES), University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy; Nanoworld Institute Fondazione ELBA Nicolini (FEN), Pradalunga, Bergamo, Italy.
authors.forename: Eugenia
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pechkova
authors.affiliation: Nanobiotechnology and Biophysics Laboratories (NBL), Department of Experimental Medicine (DIMES), University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy; Nanoworld Institute Fondazione ELBA Nicolini (FEN), Pradalunga, Bergamo, Italy; School of Public Health, Department of Health Sciences (DISSAL), University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy.
authors.forename: Nicola Luigi
authors.initials: NL
authors.lastname: Bragazzi
authors.affiliation: Nanobiotechnology and Biophysics Laboratories (NBL), Department of Experimental Medicine (DIMES), University of Genoa, Genoa, Italy; Nanoworld Institute Fondazione ELBA Nicolini (FEN), Pradalunga, Bergamo, Italy; Biodesign Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, USA. Electronic address: info@fondazioneelba-nicolini.org.
authors.forename: Claudio
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nicolini
mesh_terms: D002942:Circular Dichroism; D019295:Computational Biology; D003461:Crystallography; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D036103:Nanotechnology; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D040901:Proteomics; D053838:Scattering, Small Angle; D013059:Spectrum Analysis, Raman
chemical_list: D011506:Proteins
keywords: Atomic force microscopy; Bioinformatics; Circular dichroism; Grazing incidence small-angle scattering; In silico simulation; Langmuir–Blodgett thin film; Laser-induced microfragmentation and laser dissection; Microbeam; Monte Carlo simulation; Nanobiotemplate-assisted nucleation and crystallization; Nanocrystallography; Protein crystallography; Raman spectroscopy