制备用于结晶的蛋白质样品

制备高质量蛋白质晶体是通过X射线衍射解析蛋白质分子三维结构的关键环节,是结构生物学领域中的瓶颈问题之一。蛋白质的结晶受多因素控制,其中蛋白质样品自身的质量是影响蛋白质能否结晶及晶体质量好坏的关键因素。我们从蛋白质纯度、可溶性、均一性及表面修饰等方面介绍了如何获得适于结晶的蛋白质样品,以及如何借助相关仪器检测蛋白质样品的质量,预测蛋白质的可结晶性。

Preparation of Proteins for Crystallization

Growing high-quality protein crystals is the bottleneck to obtain the 3-dimensional structure of proteins by X-ray crystallography in the field of structural biology.Many factors can affect the protein crystallization pro-cess,among which the protein samples themselves should be also considered as one important variable.The quality of protein samples is one of the key factors for influencing the possibility to obtain diffractable crystals.In this pa-per,for the purpose of promoting the protein crystallization,the methods of improving the purity,the solubility,and the homogeneity of the protein samples,as well as the methods of surface modification of the molecules were re-viewed.The techniques to characterize the protein samples prior to crystallization were also reviewed.