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The “speed limit” for macromolecular crystal growth
Author(s) -
Arias Renee J.,
Kaiser Jens T.,
Rees Douglas C.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
protein science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.353
H-Index - 175
eISSN - 1469-896X
pISSN - 0961-8368
DOI - 10.1002/pro.3491
Subject(s) - crystallization , crystal (programming language) , crystal growth , protein crystallization , diffusion , diffraction , chemical physics , growth rate , macromolecule , crystallography , materials science , chemistry , thermodynamics , optics , physics , mathematics , geometry , computer science , programming language , biochemistry
A simple “diffusion‐to‐capture” model is used to estimate the upper limit to the growth rate of macromolecular crystals under conditions when the rate limiting process is the mass transfer of sample from solution to the crystal. Under diffusion‐limited crystal growth conditions, this model predicts that the cross‐sectional area of a crystal will increase linearly with time; this prediction is validated by monitoring the growth rate of lysozyme crystals. A consequence of this analysis is that when crystal growth is diffusion‐limited, micron‐sized crystals can be produced in ~1 s, which would be compatible with the turnover time of many enzymes. Consequently, the ability to record diffraction patterns from sub‐micron sized crystals by X‐ray Free Electron Lasers and micro‐electron diffraction technologies opens the possibility of trapping intermediate enzyme states by crystallization.