1. Nucleation and Growth of Membrane Protein Crystals In Meso--A Fluorescence Microscopy Study.
- Author
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Bogorodskiy, Andrey, Frolov, Fedor, Mishin, Alexey, Round, Ekaterina, Polovinkin, Vitaly, Cherezov, Vadim, Gordeliy, Valentin, Büldt, Georg, Gensch, Thomas, and Borshchevskiy, Valentin
- Subjects
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DISCONTINUOUS precipitation , *MEMBRANE proteins , *CRYSTALLOIDS (Botany) , *FLUORESCENCE microscopy , *BACTERIORHODOPSIN , *CRYSTAL growth - Abstract
Since the introduction of in meso crystallization of membrane proteins in lipidic cubic phase (LCP) by Landau and Rosenbusch in 1996, numerous studies attempted to elucidate the mechanism of in meso crystal nucleation and growth. Here we present a fluorescence microscopy study of the crystallization process of the light-driven proton pump bacteriorhodopsin. The crystallization starts with formation of microcrystals, followed by growth of a dominating crystal at the expense of smaller ones and formation of a depletion zone around it. These observations suggest an Ostwald ripening mechanism of the in meso crystal growth. Analysis of the microcrystal spatial distribution suggests that microcrystal nucleation occurs predominately at the LCP domain boundaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2015
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