In response to the growing need for new crystallization techniques that facilitate for rapid processing times along with control over crystal size and distribution, the Aslan Research Group has recently demonstrated the use of Metal-Assisted and Microwave-Accelerated Evaporative Crystallization (MA-MAEC) technique in conjunction with silver nanostructures deposited onto circular crystallization platforms.<br/>In this work, we employed the MA-MAEC technique with iron nano-columns (height: 50, 100 and 200 nm, average distance between the columns = 140, 175 and 175 nm, respectively) to control the size distribution of protein crystals by initiating the growth of protein crystals between the iron nano-columns. Using the MA-MAEC technique, we observed a narrower size distribution and a decrease in the size of lysozyme crystals grown on iron nano-column deposited circular crystallization platforms as compared to grown on platforms without iron nano-columns, which can be directly attributed to the iron nano-columns. Moreover, similar results were observed for lysozyme crystals grown on iron nano-columns at room temperature. These observations prove that the MA-MAEC technique and iron nano-columns can offer alternative means for control over crystal size and distribution of biological molecules.

Crystallization of proteins on iron nanocolumns using metal-assisted and microwave-accelerated evaporative crystallization for Iiproved size distribution

249th National Meeting (2015)

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