Protein Crystal Growth Results from Shuttle Flight 51-F

摘要

The protein crystal growth (PCG) experiments run on 51-F were analyzed. It was found that: (1) sample stability is increased over that observed during the experiments on flight 51-D; (2) the dialysis experiments produced lysozyme crystals that were significantly larger than those obtained in our identical ground-based studies; (3) temperature fluctuations apparently caused problems during the crystallization experiments on 51-F; (4) it is indicated that teflon tape stabilizes droplets on the syringe tips; (5) samples survived during the reentry and landing in glass tips that were not stoppered with plungers; (6) from the ground-based studies, it was expected that equilibration should be complete within 2 to 4 days for all of these vapor-diffusion experiments, thus it appears that the vapor diffusion rates are somewhat slower under microgravity conditions; (7) drop tethering was highly successful, all four of the tethered drops were stable, even though they contained MPD solutions; (8) the PCG experiments on 51-F were done to assess the hardware and experimental procedures that are developed for future flights, when temperature control will be available. Lysozyme crystals obtained by microdialysis are considerably larger than those obtained on the ground, using the identical apparatus and procedures.