title: Exploring Carbon Nanomaterial Diversity for Nucleation of Protein Crystals.
abstract: Controlling crystal nucleation is a crucial step in obtaining high quality protein crystals for structure determination by X-ray crystallography. Carbon nanomaterials (CNMs) including carbon nanotubes, graphene oxide, and carbon black provide a range of surface topographies, porosities and length scales; functionalisation with two different approaches, gas phase radical grafting and liquid phase reductive grafting, provide routes to a range of oligomer functionalised products. These grafted materials, combined with a range of controls, were used in a large-scale assessment of the effectiveness for protein crystal nucleation of 20 different carbon nanomaterials on five proteins. This study has allowed a direct comparison of the key characteristics of carbon-based nucleants: appropriate surface chemistry, porosity and/or roughness are required. The most effective solid system tested in this study, carbon black nanoparticles functionalised with poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether of mean molecular weight 5000, provides a novel highly effective nucleant, that was able to induce crystal nucleation of four out of the five proteins tested at metastable conditions.
authors: Computational and Systems Medicine, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
authors: Lata
authors: L
authors: Govada
authors: Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
authors: Hannah S
authors: HS
authors: Leese
authors: Laboratory of Structural and Supramolecular Chemistry, Institute of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology, National Centre for Scientific Research 'Demokritos' Athens, Greece.
authors: Emmanuel
authors: E
authors: Saridakis
authors: Computational and Systems Medicine, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
authors: Sean
authors: S
authors: Kassen
authors: Division of infection and immunity, The Cruciform Building, UCL, Gower St., London WC1E 6BT.
authors: Benny
authors: B
authors: Chain
authors: Computational and Systems Medicine, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
authors: Sahir
authors: S
authors: Khurshid
authors: Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
authors: Robert
authors: R
authors: Menzel
authors: Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
authors: Sheng
authors: S
authors: Hu
authors: Department of Chemistry, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
authors: Milo S P
authors: MS
authors: Shaffer
authors: Computational and Systems Medicine, Department of Surgery and Cancer, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College London, London SW7 2AZ, UK.
authors: Naomi E
authors: NE
authors: Chayen
mesh_terms: D002374:Catalase / Q000737:chemistry; D003460:Crystallization; D006108:Graphite / Q000737:chemistry*; D046529:Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; D009113:Muramidase / Q000737:chemistry; D053758:Nanoparticles / Q000737:chemistry / Q000648:ultrastructure; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon / Q000737:chemistry*; D010084:Oxidation-Reduction; D016062:Porosity; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry*; D053260:Soot / Q000737:chemistry*; D013499:Surface Properties; D014357:Trypsin / Q000737:chemistry
chemical_list: D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon; D011506:Proteins; D053260:Soot; D006108:Graphite; D002374:Catalase; D009113:Muramidase; D014357:Trypsin