Protein Crystallization Center @ UZH
Research - Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland
Protein Crystallization Center @ UZH Employees
Protein Crystallization Center @ UZH Details
The Protein Crystallization Center – PCC@UZH – supports the structural biology research community by setting up and monitor high-throughput protein crystallization experiments at the nano-liter scale. PCC@UZH offers as a service a wide range of crystallization techniques for soluble and membrane proteins. The crystallization service is open to all academic research groups and to private industry.Proteins are the largest group of non-aqueous components in living cells. Almost every chemical reaction in a living cell requires a specific enzyme; this class of protein is also the most diverse. Knowing the 3-D structure of enzymes is vital to understand cellular processes. From the techniques used for the structure determination of macromolecules X-ray crystallography is the most productive method to date.Crystals of a protein are prerequisite for structure determination by X-ray crystallography. Since the crystallization of bio molecules is a poorly understood process, high-throughput crystallization screening methods have to be used to find a successful condition for a new protein. Using vapor diffusion as the most common crystallization technique a combination of condition variables has to be determined for each protein. Condition variables are e.g. the protein concentration, the temperature, pH, and the concentration of a wide range of precipitation agents in combination with various salts. High throughput screening in combination with miniaturizing the crystallization experiment to 100nl is a practical solution for finding a suitable crystallization condition out of a large number of tests by using only a small amount of purified protein.
