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Wright ND, Collins P, Koekemoer L, Krojer T, Talon R, Nelson E, Ye M, Nowak R, Newman J, Ng JT, Mitrovich N, Wiggers H, von Delft F. The low-cost Shifter microscope stage transforms the speed and robustness of protein crystal harvesting. Acta Crystallogr D Struct Biol 2021; 77:62-74. [PMID: 33404526 PMCID: PMC7787106 DOI: 10.1107/s2059798320014114] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/16/2019] [Accepted: 10/22/2020] [Indexed: 12/05/2022] Open
Abstract
Despite the tremendous success of X-ray cryo-crystallography in recent decades, the transfer of crystals from the drops in which they are grown to diffractometer sample mounts remains a manual process in almost all laboratories. Here, the Shifter, a motorized, interactive microscope stage that transforms the entire crystal-mounting workflow from a rate-limiting manual activity to a controllable, high-throughput semi-automated process, is described. By combining the visual acuity and fine motor skills of humans with targeted hardware and software automation, it was possible to transform the speed and robustness of crystal mounting. Control software, triggered by the operator, manoeuvres crystallization plates beneath a clear protective cover, allowing the complete removal of film seals and thereby eliminating the tedium of repetitive seal cutting. The software, either upon request or working from an imported list, controls motors to position crystal drops under a hole in the cover for human mounting at a microscope. The software automatically captures experimental annotations for uploading to the user's data repository, removing the need for manual documentation. The Shifter facilitates mounting rates of 100-240 crystals per hour in a more controlled process than manual mounting, which greatly extends the lifetime of the drops and thus allows a dramatic increase in the number of crystals retrievable from any given drop without loss of X-ray diffraction quality. In 2015, the first in a series of three Shifter devices was deployed as part of the XChem fragment-screening facility at Diamond Light Source, where they have since facilitated the mounting of over 120 000 crystals. The Shifter was engineered to have a simple design, providing a device that could be readily commercialized and widely adopted owing to its low cost. The versatile hardware design allows use beyond fragment screening and protein crystallography.
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Affiliation(s)
- Nathan David Wright
- Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Oxford, ORCRB, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, United Kingdom
| | - Patrick Collins
- I04-1, Diamond Light Source Ltd, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot OX11 0QX, United Kingdom
| | - Lizbé Koekemoer
- Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Oxford, ORCRB, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, United Kingdom
| | - Tobias Krojer
- Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Oxford, ORCRB, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, United Kingdom
| | - Romain Talon
- Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Oxford, ORCRB, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, United Kingdom
- I04-1, Diamond Light Source Ltd, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot OX11 0QX, United Kingdom
| | - Elliot Nelson
- Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Oxford, ORCRB, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, United Kingdom
| | - Mingda Ye
- Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Oxford, ORCRB, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, United Kingdom
| | - Radosław Nowak
- Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Oxford, ORCRB, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, United Kingdom
| | - Joseph Newman
- Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Oxford, ORCRB, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, United Kingdom
| | - Jia Tsing Ng
- Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Oxford, ORCRB, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, United Kingdom
| | - Nick Mitrovich
- Oxford Lab Technologies Ltd, Kemp House, 160 City Road, London EC1V 2N, United Kingdom
| | - Helton Wiggers
- Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Oxford, ORCRB, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, United Kingdom
| | - Frank von Delft
- Structural Genomics Consortium, University of Oxford, ORCRB, Roosevelt Drive, Oxford OX3 7DQ, United Kingdom
- I04-1, Diamond Light Source Ltd, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot OX11 0QX, United Kingdom
- Faculty of Science, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park, Johannesburg 2006, South Africa
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Harrison K, Wu Z, Juers DH. A comparison of gas stream cooling and plunge cooling of macromolecular crystals. J Appl Crystallogr 2019; 52:1222-1232. [PMID: 31636524 PMCID: PMC6782077 DOI: 10.1107/s1600576719010318] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/21/2018] [Accepted: 07/18/2019] [Indexed: 01/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Cryocooling for macromolecular crystallography is usually performed via plunging the crystal into a liquid cryogen or placing the crystal in a cold gas stream. These two approaches are compared here for the case of nitro-gen cooling. The results show that gas stream cooling, which typically cools the crystal more slowly, yields lower mosaicity and, in some cases, a stronger anomalous signal relative to rapid plunge cooling. During plunging, moving the crystal slowly through the cold gas layer above the liquid surface can produce mosaicity similar to gas stream cooling. Annealing plunge cooled crystals by warming and recooling in the gas stream allows the mosaicity and anomalous signal to recover. For tetragonal thermolysin, the observed effects are less pronounced when the cryosolvent has smaller thermal contraction, under which conditions the protein structures from plunge cooled and gas stream cooled crystals are very similar. Finally, this work also demonstrates that the resolution dependence of the reflecting range is correlated with the cooling method, suggesting it may be a useful tool for discerning whether crystals are cooled too rapidly. The results support previous studies suggesting that slower cooling methods are less deleterious to crystal order, as long as ice formation is prevented and dehydration is limited.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kaitlin Harrison
- Department of Physics and Program in Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Avenue, Walla Walla, WA 99362, USA
| | - Zhenguo Wu
- Department of Physics and Program in Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Avenue, Walla Walla, WA 99362, USA
| | - Douglas H Juers
- Department of Physics and Program in Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology, Whitman College, 345 Boyer Avenue, Walla Walla, WA 99362, USA
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Zander U, Hoffmann G, Cornaciu I, Marquette JP, Papp G, Landret C, Seroul G, Sinoir J, Röwer M, Felisaz F, Rodriguez-Puente S, Mariaule V, Murphy P, Mathieu M, Cipriani F, Márquez JA. Automated harvesting and processing of protein crystals through laser photoablation. Acta Crystallogr D Struct Biol 2016; 72:454-66. [PMID: 27050125 PMCID: PMC4822559 DOI: 10.1107/s2059798316000954] [Citation(s) in RCA: 54] [Impact Index Per Article: 6.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/03/2015] [Accepted: 01/16/2016] [Indexed: 01/10/2023]
Abstract
New methods for crystal mounting, soaking and cryocooling contribute to bridging the automation gap between crystallization and X-ray data collection. Currently, macromolecular crystallography projects often require the use of highly automated facilities for crystallization and X-ray data collection. However, crystal harvesting and processing largely depend on manual operations. Here, a series of new methods are presented based on the use of a low X-ray-background film as a crystallization support and a photoablation laser that enable the automation of major operations required for the preparation of crystals for X-ray diffraction experiments. In this approach, the controlled removal of the mother liquor before crystal mounting simplifies the cryocooling process, in many cases eliminating the use of cryoprotectant agents, while crystal-soaking experiments are performed through diffusion, precluding the need for repeated sample-recovery and transfer operations. Moreover, the high-precision laser enables new mounting strategies that are not accessible through other methods. This approach bridges an important gap in automation and can contribute to expanding the capabilities of modern macromolecular crystallography facilities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ulrich Zander
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
| | - Guillaume Hoffmann
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
| | - Irina Cornaciu
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
| | - Jean-Pierre Marquette
- Structure Design Informatics and Structural Biology, Sanofi, 13 Quai Jules Guesde, 94403 Vitry-sur-Seine, France
| | - Gergely Papp
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
| | - Christophe Landret
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
| | - Gaël Seroul
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
| | - Jérémy Sinoir
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
| | - Martin Röwer
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
| | - Frank Felisaz
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
| | - Sonia Rodriguez-Puente
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
| | - Vincent Mariaule
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
| | - Peter Murphy
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
| | - Magali Mathieu
- Structure Design Informatics and Structural Biology, Sanofi, 13 Quai Jules Guesde, 94403 Vitry-sur-Seine, France
| | - Florent Cipriani
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
| | - José Antonio Márquez
- Grenoble Outstation, European Molecular Biology Laboratory; Unit of Virus Host-Cell Interactions (UMI 3265), University Grenoble Alpes-EMBL-CNRS, 71 Avenue des Martyrs, 38042 Grenoble, France
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Cuttitta CM, Ericson DL, Scalia A, Roessler CG, Teplitsky E, Joshi K, Campos O, Agarwal R, Allaire M, Orville AM, Sweet RM, Soares AS. Acoustic transfer of protein crystals from agarose pedestals to micromeshes for high-throughput screening. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2015; 71:94-103. [PMID: 25615864 PMCID: PMC4304690 DOI: 10.1107/s1399004714013728] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/10/2014] [Accepted: 06/12/2014] [Indexed: 12/03/2022]
Abstract
An acoustic high-throughput screening method is described for harvesting protein crystals and combining the protein crystals with chemicals such as a fragment library. Acoustic droplet ejection (ADE) is an emerging technology with broad applications in serial crystallography such as growing, improving and manipulating protein crystals. One application of this technology is to gently transfer crystals onto MiTeGen micromeshes with minimal solvent. Once mounted on a micromesh, each crystal can be combined with different chemicals such as crystal-improving additives or a fragment library. Acoustic crystal mounting is fast (2.33 transfers s−1) and all transfers occur in a sealed environment that is in vapor equilibrium with the mother liquor. Here, a system is presented to retain crystals near the ejection point and away from the inaccessible dead volume at the bottom of the well by placing the crystals on a concave agarose pedestal (CAP) with the same chemical composition as the crystal mother liquor. The bowl-shaped CAP is impenetrable to crystals. Consequently, gravity will gently move the crystals into the optimal location for acoustic ejection. It is demonstrated that an agarose pedestal of this type is compatible with most commercially available crystallization conditions and that protein crystals are readily transferred from the agarose pedestal onto micromeshes with no loss in diffraction quality. It is also shown that crystals can be grown directly on CAPs, which avoids the need to transfer the crystals from the hanging drop to a CAP. This technology has been used to combine thermolysin and lysozyme crystals with an assortment of anomalously scattering heavy atoms. The results point towards a fast nanolitre method for crystal mounting and high-throughput screening.
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Affiliation(s)
- Christina M Cuttitta
- Office of Educational Programs, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA
| | - Daniel L Ericson
- Office of Educational Programs, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA
| | - Alexander Scalia
- Office of Educational Programs, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA
| | - Christian G Roessler
- Photon Sciences Directorate, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA
| | - Ella Teplitsky
- Office of Educational Programs, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA
| | - Karan Joshi
- Office of Educational Programs, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA
| | - Olven Campos
- Office of Educational Programs, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA
| | - Rakhi Agarwal
- Biosciences Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA
| | - Marc Allaire
- Photon Sciences Directorate, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA
| | - Allen M Orville
- Photon Sciences Directorate, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA
| | - Robert M Sweet
- Photon Sciences Directorate, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA
| | - Alexei S Soares
- Photon Sciences Directorate, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY 11973-5000, USA
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Mazzorana M, Sanchez-Weatherby J, Sandy J, Lobley CMC, Sorensen T. An evaluation of adhesive sample holders for advanced crystallographic experiments. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2014; 70:2390-400. [PMID: 25195752 PMCID: PMC4157448 DOI: 10.1107/s1399004714014370] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/20/2013] [Accepted: 06/18/2014] [Indexed: 05/28/2023]
Abstract
The hydration state of macromolecular crystals often affects their overall order and, ultimately, the quality of the X-ray diffraction pattern that they produce. Post-crystallization techniques that alter the solvent content of a crystal may induce rearrangement within the three-dimensional array making up the crystal, possibly resulting in more ordered packing. The hydration state of a crystal can be manipulated by exposing it to a stream of air at controlled relative humidity in which the crystal can equilibrate. This approach provides a way of exploring crystal hydration space to assess the diffraction capabilities of existing crystals. A key requirement of these experiments is to expose the crystal directly to the dehydrating environment by having the minimum amount of residual mother liquor around it. This is usually achieved by placing the crystal on a flat porous support (Kapton mesh) and removing excess liquid by wicking. Here, an alternative approach is considered whereby crystals are harvested using adhesives that capture naked crystals directly from their crystallization drop, reducing the process to a one-step procedure. The impact of using adhesives to ease the harvesting of different types of crystals is presented together with their contribution to background scattering and their usefulness in dehydration experiments. It is concluded that adhesive supports represent a valuable tool for mounting macromolecular crystals to be used in humidity-controlled experiments and to improve signal-to-noise ratios in diffraction experiments, and how they can protect crystals from modifications in the sample environment is discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marco Mazzorana
- Diamond Light Source, Diamond House, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0DE, England
| | - Juan Sanchez-Weatherby
- Diamond Light Source, Diamond House, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0DE, England
| | - James Sandy
- Diamond Light Source, Diamond House, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0DE, England
| | - Carina M C Lobley
- Diamond Light Source, Diamond House, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0DE, England
| | - Thomas Sorensen
- Diamond Light Source, Diamond House, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0DE, England
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Abstract
A new micro-agent is proposed to assist in automated protein crystal harvesting. The microrobot, named the RodBot, is a wireless mobile device driven by rotating magnetic fields (field strength 5–10 mT). When the RodBot rolls on a substrate in a low Reynolds number liquid environment, it generates flows to lift up and trap crystals in a vortex above itself. The gentle fluidic force acting on the crystals is in the range of a few nanonewtons to tens of nanonewtons and is spread over the whole surface of the crystal. The RodBot is capable of trapping protein crystals ranging from a few micrometres to sub-millimetre size. The trapped crystal can be transported to and deposited onto a loop positioned to accept it, obviating the need for more complicated `fishing' systems dependent on particular motions of the loop, the presence of further manipulators or the use of mechanical grippers. The RodBot can be driven in 24- and 96-well plates or in a crystal soaking dish, making the system compatible with existing crystallization hardware.
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Abstract
The harvesting of protein crystals is almost always a necessary step in the determination of a protein structure using X-ray crystallographic techniques. However, protein crystals are usually fragile and susceptible to damage during the harvesting process. For this reason, protein crystal harvesting is the single step that remains entirely dependent on skilled human intervention. Automation has been implemented in the majority of other stages of the structure-determination pipeline, including cloning, expression, purification, crystallization and data collection. The gap in automation between crystallization and data collection results in a bottleneck in throughput and presents unfortunate opportunities for crystal damage. Several automated protein crystal harvesting systems have been developed, including systems utilizing microcapillaries, microtools, microgrippers, acoustic droplet ejection and optical traps. However, these systems have yet to be commonly deployed in the majority of crystallography laboratories owing to a variety of technical and cost-related issues. Automation of protein crystal harvesting remains essential for harnessing the full benefits of fourth-generation synchrotrons, free-electron lasers and microfocus beamlines. Furthermore, automation of protein crystal harvesting offers several benefits when compared with traditional manual approaches, including the ability to harvest microcrystals, improved flash-cooling procedures and increased throughput.
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Affiliation(s)
- Marc C. Deller
- The Joint Center for Structural Genomics, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA
| | - Bernhard Rupp
- Department of Forensic Crystallography, k.-k. Hofkristallamt, 991 Audrey Place, Vista, CA 92084, USA
- Department of Genetic Epidemiology, Innsbruck Medical University, Schöpfstrasse 41, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
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Abstract
The last years have seen a major development in automation for protein production, crystallization, and X-ray diffraction data collection, which has contributed to accelerate the pace of structure solution and to facilitate the study of ever more challenging targets through macromolecular crystallography. This has led to a considerable increase in the numbers of crystals produced and analyzed. However the process of recovering crystals from crystallization supports and mounting them in X-ray data collection pins remains a manual and delicate operation. Here we present a novel approach enabling full automation of the crystal mounting process and describe the operation of the first-automated CrystalDirect harvesting unit. Implications for crystallography applications and for the future operational integration of automated crystallization and data collection resources are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- José A Márquez
- European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Grenoble Outstation, Grenoble, France
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Ferrer JL, Larive NA, Bowler MW, Nurizzo D. Recent progress in robot-based systems for crystallography and their contribution to drug discovery. Expert Opin Drug Discov 2013; 8:835-47. [PMID: 23656378 DOI: 10.1517/17460441.2013.793666] [Citation(s) in RCA: 19] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
Abstract
INTRODUCTION X-ray crystallography is the main tool for macromolecular structure solution at atomic resolution. It provides key information for the understanding of protein function, opening opportunities for the modulation of enzymatic mechanisms, and protein-ligand interactions. As a consequence, macromolecular crystallography plays an essential role in drug design, as well as in the a posteriori validation of drug mechanisms. AREAS COVERED The demand for method developments and also tools for macromolecular crystallography has significantly increased over the past 10 years. As a consequence, access to the facilities required for these investigations, such as synchrotron beamlines, became more difficult and significant efforts were dedicated to the automation of the experimental setup in laboratories. In this article, the authors describe how this was accomplished and how robot-based systems contribute to the enhancement of the macromolecular structure solution pipeline. EXPERT OPINION The evolution in robot technology, together with progress in X-ray beam performance and software developments, contributes to a new era in macromolecular X-ray crystallography. Highly integrated experimental environments open new possibilities for crystallography experiments. It is likely that it will also change the way this technique will be used in the future, opening the field to a larger community.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jean-Luc Ferrer
- Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Joseph Fourier (UJF), Institut de Biologie Structurale Jean-Pierre Ebel (IBS), F-38027 Grenoble Cedex 1, France.
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Heidari Khajepour MY, Vernede X, Cobessi D, Lebrette H, Rogues P, Terrien M, Berzin C, Ferrer JL. REACH: Robotic Equipment for Automated Crystal Harvesting using a six-axis robot arm and a micro-gripper. Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr 2013; 69:381-7. [PMID: 23519413 DOI: 10.1107/s0907444912048019] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/30/2012] [Accepted: 11/21/2012] [Indexed: 11/11/2022]
Abstract
In protein crystallography experiments, only two critical steps remain manual: the transfer of crystals from their original crystallization drop into the cryoprotection solution followed by flash-cooling. These steps are risky and tedious, requiring a high degree of manual dexterity. These limiting steps are a real bottleneck to high-throughput crystallography and limit the remote use of protein crystallography core facilities. To eliminate this limit, the Robotic Equipment for Automated Crystal Harvesting (REACH) was developed. This robotized system, equipped with a two-finger micro-gripping device, allows crystal harvesting, cryoprotection and flash-cooling. Using this setup, harvesting experiments were performed on several crystals, followed by direct data collection using the same robot arm as a goniometer. Analysis of the diffraction data demonstrates that REACH is highly reliable and efficient and does not alter crystallographic data. This new instrument fills the gap in the high-throughput crystallographic pipeline.
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Affiliation(s)
- Mohammad Yaser Heidari Khajepour
- Institut de Biologie Structurale Jean-Pierre Ebel, Groupe Synchrotron, Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Joseph Fourier, F-38027 Grenoble CEDEX 1, France
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Cipriani F, Röwer M, Landret C, Zander U, Felisaz F, Márquez JA. CrystalDirect: a new method for automated crystal harvesting based on laser-induced photoablation of thin films. Acta Crystallogr D Biol Crystallogr 2012; 68:1393-9. [DOI: 10.1107/s0907444912031459] [Citation(s) in RCA: 70] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/23/2012] [Accepted: 07/10/2012] [Indexed: 11/10/2022]
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Thielmann Y, Koepke J, Michel H. The ESFRI Instruct Core Centre Frankfurt: automated high-throughput crystallization suited for membrane proteins and more. ACTA ACUST UNITED AC 2012; 13:63-9. [DOI: 10.1007/s10969-011-9118-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/01/2011] [Accepted: 11/05/2011] [Indexed: 10/15/2022]
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