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'Hit and run' serial femtosecond crystallography of a membrane kinase in the lipid cubic phase.

Authors :
Caffrey M
Li D
Howe N
Shah ST
Source :
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences [Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci] 2014 Jul 17; Vol. 369 (1647), pp. 20130621.
Publication Year :
2014

Abstract

The lipid-based bicontinuous cubic mesophase is a nanoporous membrane mimetic with applications in areas that include medicine, personal care products, foods and the basic sciences. An application of particular note concerns it use as a medium in which to grow crystals of membrane proteins for structure determination by X-ray crystallography. At least two variations of the mesophase exist. One is the highly viscous cubic phase, which has well developed long-range order. The other so-called sponge phase is considerably more fluid and lacks long-range order. The sponge phase has recently been shown to be a convenient vehicle for delivering microcrystals of membrane proteins to an X-ray free-electron laser beam for serial femtosecond crystallography (SFX). Unfortunately, the sponge phase approach calls for large amounts of protein that are not always available in the case of membrane proteins. The cubic phase offers the advantage of requiring significantly less protein for SFX but comes with its own challenges. Here, we describe the physico-chemical bases for these challenges, solutions to them and prospects for future uses of lipidic mesophases in the SFX arena.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
1471-2970
Volume :
369
Issue :
1647
Database :
MEDLINE
Journal :
Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
24914170
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2013.0621