Crystal structure determination of macromolecules is often hampered by the lack of crystals suitable for diffraction experiments. This article describes a protocol to crystallize the acidic protein bovine -lactoglobulin in the presence of yttrium to yield high-quality crystals that belong to a new space group. The yttrium ions not only are used to engineer the crystallization, but are an integr...

Chicken egg white lysozyme has been found to crystallize from ammonium, sodium, potassium, rubidium, magnesium, and manganese sulfates at acidic and basic pH, with protein concentrations from 60 to 190 mg/ml. Crystals have also been grown at 4°C in the absence of any other added salts using isoionic lysozyme which was titrated to pH 4.6 with dilute sulfuric acid. Four different crystal forms ha...

We present a series of experimental results that disclose the crucial role of ionic strength and partial volume fractions in the control of the phase behaviour of binary protein mixtures. Our findings can be understood as that the ionic strength determines the relative contribution of the entropy of the protein counter-ions to the overall thermodynamics of the system. Associative phase separati...

Metallic systems are widely used as materials in daily human life. Their properties depend very much on the production route. In order to improve the production process and even develop novel materials a detailed knowledge of all physical processes involved in crystallization is mandatory. Atomic systems like metals are characterized by very high relaxation rates, which make direct investigatio...

We present a series of experimental results that disclose the crucial role of ionic strength and partial volume fractions in the control of the phase behaviour of binary protein mixtures. Our findings can be understood as that the ionic strength determines the relative contribution of the entropy of the protein counter-ions to the overall thermodynamics of the system. Associative phase separati...

Precipitation of cholesterol crystals from vesicles is an important step in the pathogenesis of cholesterol gallstones. Little is known, however, about the kinetics and the mechanisms involved in cholesterol crystallization. Therefore, the time course of cholesterol crystal precipitation and lipid exchange between vesicles and micelles were monitored in a model bile system. Vesicles obtained fr...

Despite its importance in cholesterol gallstone formation, crystallization of cholesterol from bile is poorly understood, especially with respect to the influences of other biliary lipids. We reported recently (Konikoff et al. J. Clin. Invest. 1992. 90: 1155-1160) that cholesterol can crystallize from model and native biles as filamentous crystals covered by a surface layer of lecithin molecule...

Overexpressed recombinant proteins in bacteria often tend to misfold and accumulate as soluble aggregates and/or inclusion bodies. A strategy for improving the level of expression of recombinant proteins in a soluble native form is to increase the cellular concentration of osmolytes or of chaperones. This can be accomplished by growing the bacterial cells in the presence of high salt, sorbitol,...

The utility of a laboratory diagnostic approach was investigated for a systematic evaluation of the impact of operating conditions, membrane type, and antiscalant effectiveness on membrane mineral salt scale formation. The study focused on low-pressure reverse osmosis (RO) membrane desalting of brackish water with high potential for scaling by calcium sulfate dihydrate (gypsum). Gypsum scale fo...

The title hydrated salt, 2C(5)H(8)N(3) (+)·C(8)H(5)O(4) (-)·NO(3) (-)·H(2)O, was obtained fortuitously from the reaction between 2,6-diamino-pyridine, phthalic acid and Co(NO(3))(2)·6H(2)O at 343 K. The asymmetric unit consists of two crystallographically independent 2,6-diamino-pyridinium cations, a hydrogen phthalate anion, a nitrate ion and a water mol-ecule of crystallization which in the c...