1. Robert E. Thorne Cornell University Alexander Malkin LLNL
Growing Larger Protein Crystals: Some Insights From Fundamental Studies
Robert E. Thorne
Cornell University
Alexander Malkin
LLNL
This work was supported by

2. Why Grow Larger Protein Crystals?
Larger crystals reduce the radiation dose/volume required to obtain a structure.
Flash cooling almost always degrades crystal order and diffraction resolution, and always degrades mosaicity.
Viruses and large macromolecular complexes often freeze poorly (resolution  MW1/3?).
Flash cooled crystals are less suitable for time resolved and mechanistic studies.
To collect the same amount of data at room T, the linear crystal dimension must be increased by
( if one dimension is fixed).

3. Obstacles to Obtaining Larger Crystals
1. Crystals develop cracks, twins, and other macroscopic defects as they grow larger.
2. Crystals stop growing.
3. Excessive nucleation depletes protein. Problem 3 can be solved by careful control of growth conditions and by seeding. What about problems 1 and 2?

4. Q: Why Do Crystals Develop Cracks and Other Defects as they Grow Larger? A: Because impurities incorporate nonuniformly within the crystal.

5. I. Sectorial Nonuniformity
A crystal habit is defined by the growth faces, e.g., (101), (110), (111)
A growth sector is the region of the crystal formed by adding molecules to a particular facet.
(101) facet
(110) facet
The dark shaded region is one of eight growth sectors
formed by addition of molecules to (101) faces. The
light shaded region is one of four growth sectors formed
by addition of molecules to (110) faces.
(101) growth sector
(110) growth sector

6. Impurities preferentially stick to certain faces
Impurities preferentially stick to certain faces. The impurity density and average lattice constant vary between growth sectors, creating stresses.
These sectorial stresses grow with crystal size. Once these stresses reach a critical value, the crystal cracks and/or develops other defects to relieve stress.

7. II. Radial Nonuniformity
Impurity incorporation increases with growth rate.
Growth rates are largest just after nucleation.
Impurity
Incorp-
oration
rate
Growth
rate
time
Growth rate
Crystals tend to have impurity-rich cores.

8. Impurity
density
Radial distance from core
Radial gradients in impurity density create stresses that drive crystal cracking and formation of polycrystals.

9. Q: Why Do Crystals Stop Growing
Q: Why Do Crystals Stop Growing? A: Because impurities contaminate the crystal surface, and prevent molecular attachment and growth.
Impurities adsorb onto the growing crystal surface.
Supersaturation and growth rate decrease as the mother liquor becomes depleted.
Impurity coverage increases with decreasing growth rate.
When the surface impurity density is large enough, growth step motion and growth cease.

10. A minimum supersaturation required to sustain growth, determined by the impurity concentration.
Due to macromolecule degradation, the effective impurity concentration increases with time during growth.
no impurities
Growth
Rate
With impurities
Growth
Rate
time
supersaturation
supersaturation

11. Removing the impurity layer allows growth to resume.
Once growth has stopped, increasing the super-saturation usually will not cause growth to resume.
Atomic force microscopy (AFM) images of impurity contaminated surfaces:
AFM images showing surfaces of (a) a CMV crystal and (b) a xylanase crystal that are completely covered by an impurity adsorption layer, resulting in cessation of growth. (c) On the surface of the xylanase crystal, scratching and partially removing the impurity layer reveals growth steps that were buried under the impurity layer. (d) After Impurity removal, a newly formed two- dimensional nucleus signals resumption of growth. The scan areas for the AFM images are (a) 450 x 450 nm; (b) 8 x 8 mm; (c) 15 x 15 mm and (d) 15 x 15 mm.
Removing the impurity layer allows growth to resume.

12. Conclusion
Impurities present in growth solutions are the most important factor limiting the size of macromolecular crystals.

13. Conclusion
Impurities present in growth solutions are the most important factor limiting the size of macromolecular crystals.
Your Response?

14. Conclusion
Impurities present in growth solutions are the most important factor limiting the size of macromolecular crystals.
Your Response?
Demand a bigger slice of the pie from your crystal-growing colleagues.

15. Conclusion
Impurities present in growth solutions are the most important factor limiting the size of macromolecular crystals.
Your Response?
Demand a bigger slice of the pie from your crystal-growing colleagues.
Specific growth strategies: see Poster 45 or

16. To reduce cracking and defects due to sectorial impurity concentration differences:
Purify the growth solution.
Refresh the growth solution to minimize degraded protein “impurities.”
Reduce sectorial concentration differences by modifying solution chemistry, or by trying other crystal forms/habits for which the exposed facets are more nearly chemically equivalent.

17. To reduce cracking and defects due to radial concentration differences:
Purify the growth solution, and use freshly purified solution.
Use slower and more controlled supersaturation increases to allow sufficient time for nucleation to occur at lower supersaturations, reducing initial growth rates.
Macroseed into solutions that produce slower growth rates.

18. Purify enough protein to make ~30 mm seeds and then macroseed into less pure solutions.
Left: a lysozyme crystal grown by adding a pure seed to a solution containing 20% ovotransferrin. Spontaneous nucleation only produces the polycrystalline balls at right.
Right: 2 photon fluorescence image of a crystal grown from a 5% ovotransferrin solution from a pure seed. The crystal is perfect even though impurities incorporate in the post-seed growth region.

19. To prevent impurity-induced growth cessation:
Purify the growth solution, and use freshly purified solution.
Reduce degradation by removing enzymes, lowering growth temperatures to 4°C, adding preservatives and reducing the time between drop setup and nucleation.
Keep the supersaturation ahead of the knee in the growth rate curve. Add fresh solution, change the well solution or change the temperature.
Since degradation products accumulate in the original solution, macroseed to a fresh solution. Only use seeds that are still growing.

20. If growth cessation has occurred:
Try a relatively short period of undersaturation to remove adsorbed impurities and then seed into a fresh saturated solution. Periodic cycles of undersaturation followed by longer periods of supersaturation may revive and sustain growth.
To reduce formation of inclusions and microcrystallites, after etching away impurities in an undersaturated solution, transfer the crystal to a modestly supersaturated solution that just sustains growth, and then increase the supersaturation to obtain a desired growth rate.

21. Protein crystals grow by addition of molecules to growth steps, formed by nucleation of 2D islands on the crystal surface.

22. Addition of molecules to a growth step