Protein Crystallization

Abstract

X-ray crystallography is a powerful method for obtaining the three-dimensional structures of biological macromolecules and macromolecular complexes. Improvements in protein production, crystallization, data collection, as well as structure solution and refinement methods have brought the field to the verge of rapid high-throughput genomic scale structure determination. The major bottle neck to this process remains protein production and crystallization. This chapter describes essential information on standard protein production and crystallization methods and ongoing efforts to perform this work using high-throughput robotics.