ReviewActa crystallographica. Section F, Structural biology communications2014
Nucleation precursors in protein crystallization.
Review in Acta crystallographica. Section F, Structural biology communications, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Automated microbatch-under-oil phase diagrams to rationalize serial crystallography sample preparation.IUCrJ · 2026Article
- Alternative Strategies to Promote Biomolecule Nucleation.Advances in biochemical engineering/biotechnology · 2026Review
- Quantitative Perspectives of Biomolecular Crystallization Thermodynamics.Advances in biochemical engineering/biotechnology · 2026Review
- Resistive Pulse Sensing of Pre-Nucleation Activities during Single-Entity Lysozyme Crystallization on Single Nanopipettes.Sensors and actuators reports · 2025Article
- Tracking Prenucleation Molecular Clustering of Salicylamide in Organic Solvents.Crystal growth & design · 2024Article
- The Effect of Chain Length and Conformation on the Nucleation of Glycine Homopeptides during the Crystallization Process.Crystal growth & design · 2023Article
- Influence of Centrifugation and Shaking on the Self-Assembly of Lysozyme Fibrils.Biomolecules · 2022Article
- Online Monitoring of the Concentrations of Amorphous and Crystalline Mesoscopic Species Present in Solution.Crystal growth & design · 2022Article
- Article
- Liquid Metastable Precursors of Ibuprofen as Aqueous Nucleation Intermediates.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2019Article
- Recent progress on understanding the mechanisms of amyloid nucleation.Biophysical reviews · 2018Review
- The "Sticky Patch" Model of Crystallization and Modification of Proteins for Enhanced Crystallizability.Methods in molecular biology (Clifton, N.J.) · 2017Review
- Recent applications of light scattering measurement in the biological and biopharmaceutical sciences.Analytical biochemistry · 2016Review
- Do protein crystals nucleate within dense liquid clusters?Acta crystallographica. Section F, Structural biology communications · 2015Article
- Automation in biological crystallization.Acta crystallographica. Section F, Structural biology communications · 2014Article
- Article
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2 authors.
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Abstract
Protein crystal nucleation is a central problem in biological crystallography and other areas of science, technology and medicine. Recent studies have demonstrated that protein crystal nuclei form within crucial precursors. Here, methods of detection and characterization of the precursors are reviewed: dynamic light scattering, atomic force microscopy and Brownian microscopy. Data for several proteins provided by these methods have demonstrated that the nucleation precursors are clusters consisting of protein-dense liquid, which are metastable with respect to the host protein solution. The clusters are several hundred nanometres in size, the cluster population occupies from 10(-7) to 10(-3) of the solution volume, and their properties in solutions supersaturated with respect to crystals are similar to those in homogeneous, i.e. undersaturated, solutions. The clusters exist owing to the conformation flexibility of the protein molecules, leading to exposure of hydrophobic surfaces and enhanced intermolecular binding. These results indicate that protein conformational flexibility might be the mechanism behind the metastable mesoscopic clusters and crystal nucleation. Investigations of the cluster properties are still in their infancy. Results on direct imaging of cluster behaviors and characterization of cluster mechanisms with a variety of proteins will soon lead to major breakthroughs in protein biophysics.
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