Processing of Membrane Protein Crystal Using Ultraviolet Laser Irradiation

摘要

We demonstrated the processing of a membrane protein crystal,using a pulsed UV laser soft ablation (PULSA) technique.Irradiation with deep-UV laser pulses at a wavelength of 193 nm successfully processed not only single crystals of the membrane transporter protein AcrB but also nylon loops and cryoprotectants at a cryogenic temperature.Nonprocessed parts of the crystals exhibited no signs of crack or denaturation after the laser exposure.The trimmed crystals were found to be of high resolution for X-ray diffraction data collection.The results described here indicate that PULSA processing is an effective tool for membrane protein crystals,as well as for soluble protein crystals.