Search Results (5)

Haloalkane dehalogenases are a very important class of microbial enzymes for environmental detoxification of halogenated pollutants, for biocatalysis, biosensing and molecular tagging. The double mutant (Ile44Leu + Gln102His) of the haloalkane dehalogenase DbeA from Bradyrhizobium elkanii USDA94 (DbeAΔCl) was constructed to study the role of the second halide-binding site previously discovered in the wild-type structure. The variant is less active, less stable in the presence of chloride ions and exhibits significantly altered substrate specificity when compared with the DbeAwt. DbeAΔCl was crystallized using the sitting-drop vapour-diffusion procedure with further optimization by the random microseeding technique. The crystal structure of the DbeAΔCl has been determined and refined to the 1.4 Å resolution. The DbeAΔCl crystals belong to monoclinic space group C121. The DbeAΔCl molecular structure was characterized and compared with five known haloalkane dehalogenases selected from the Protein Data Bank. Full article

Human carbonic anhydrase IX (CA IX) is a multi-domain membrane protein that is therefore difficult to express or crystalize. To prepare crystals that are suitable for neutron studies, we are using only the catalytic domain of CA IX with six surface mutations, named surface variant (SV). The crystallization of CA IX SV, and also partly deuterated CA IX SV, was enabled by the use of microseed matrix screening (MMS). Only three drops with crystals were obtained after initial sparse matrix screening, and these were used as seeds in subsequent crystallization trials. Application of MMS, commercial screens, and refinement resulted in consistent crystallization and diffraction-quality crystals. The crystallization protocols and strategies that resulted in consistent crystallization are presented. These results demonstrate not only the use of MMS in the growth of large single crystals for neutron studies with defined conditions, but also that MMS enabled re-screening to find new conditions and consistent crystallization success. Full article

There is an increasing demand for cold-adapted enzymes in a wide range of industrial branches. Nevertheless, structural information about them is still scarce. The knowledge of crystal structures is important to understand their mode of action and to design genetically engineered enzymes with enhanced activity. The most difficult task and the limiting step in structural studies of cold-adapted enzymes is their crystallization, which should provide well-diffracting monocrystals. Herein, we present a combination of well-established crystallization methods with new protocols based on crystal seeding that allowed us to obtain well-diffracting crystals of two cold-adapted β-d-galactosidases (βDGs) from Paracoccus sp. 32d (ParβDG) and from Arthrobacter sp. 32cB (ArthβDG). Structural studies of both βDGs are important for designing efficient and inexpensive enzymatic tools for lactose removal and synthesis of galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) and hetero-oligosaccharides (HOS), food additives proved to have a beneficial effect on the human immune system and intestinal flora. We also present the first crystal structure of ArthβDG (PDB ID: 6ETZ) determined at 1.9 Å resolution, and compare it to the ParβDG structure (PDB ID: 5EUV). In contrast to tetrameric lacZ βDG and hexameric βDG from Arthrobacter C2-2, both of these βDGs are dimers, unusual for the GH2 family. Additionally, we discuss the various crystallization seeding protocols, which allowed us to obtain ParβDG and ArthβDG monocrystals suitable for diffraction experiments. Full article

Seeding is a versatile method for optimizing crystal growth. Coupling this technique with capillary counter diffusion crystallization enhances the size and diffraction quality of the crystals. In this article, crystals for organic solvent-tolerant recombinant elastase strain K were successfully produced through microseeding with capillary counter-diffusion crystallization. This technique improved the nucleation success rate with a low protein concentration (3.00 mg/mL). The crystal was grown in 1 M ammonium phosphate monobasic and 0.1 M sodium citrate tribasic dihydrate pH 5.6. The optimized crystal size was 1 × 0.1 × 0.05 mm³. Elastase strain K successfully diffracted up to 1.39 Å at SPring-8, Japan, using synchrotron radiation for preliminary data diffraction analysis. The space group was determined to be monoclinic space group P12₁1 with unit cell parameters of a = 38.99 Ǻ, b = 90.173 Å and c = 40.60 Å. Full article

Hydrolysis is an often-encountered obstacle in the crystallization of proteins complexed with their substrates. As the duration of the crystallization process, from nucleation to the growth of the crystal to its final size, commonly requires several weeks, non-enzymatic hydrolysis of an “unstable” ligand occurs frequently. In cases where the crystallization conditions exhibit non neutral pH values this hydrolysis phenomenon may be even more pronounced. ChoX, the substrate binding protein of a choline ABC-importer, produced crystals with its substrate acetylcholine after one month. However, these crystals exhibited only choline, an acetylcholine hydrolysis product, in the binding site. To overcome this obstacle we devised a microseeding protocol leading to crystals of ChoX with bound acetylcholine within 24 hours. One drawback we encountered was the high twinning fraction of the crystals, possibly was due to the rapid crystal growth. Full article