Abstract
In the past two decades, most of the steps in a macromolecular crystallography experiment have undergone tremendous development with respect to speed, feasibility and increase of throughput. The part of the experimental workflow that is still a bottleneck, despite significant efforts, involves the manipulation and harvesting of the crystals for the diffraction experiment. Here, a novel low-cost device is presented that functions as a cover for 96-well crystallization plates. This device enables access to the individual experiments one at a time by its movable parts, while minimizing evaporation of all other experiments of the plate. In initial tests, drops of many typically used crystallization cocktails could be successfully protected for up to 6 h. Therefore, the manipulation and harvesting of crystals is straightforward for the experimenter, enabling significantly higher throughput. This is useful for many macromolecular crystallography experiments, especially multi-crystal screening campaigns.
Highlights
In the past two decades, X-ray crystallography, in particular macromolecular X-ray crystallography, has experienced an enormous boost with respect to automation and throughput
The manipulation and harvesting of crystals is straightforward for the experimenter, enabling significantly higher throughput. This is useful for many macromolecular crystallography experiments, especially multi-crystal screening campaigns
Efforts have been directed towards the automation of crystal handling and crystal harvesting, tackling this bottleneck of high-throughput crystallography (Deller & Rupp, 2014; Cuttitta et al, 2015; Wright et al, 2021; Cipriani et al, 2012)
Summary
In the past two decades, X-ray crystallography, in particular macromolecular X-ray crystallography, has experienced an enormous boost with respect to automation and throughput This is, in part, due to newer generation synchrotron facilities and increased sensitivity and fast readout of modern detectors (Leonarski et al, 2018; Forster et al, 2019; Owen et al, 2016). Efforts have been directed towards the automation of crystal handling and crystal harvesting, tackling this bottleneck of high-throughput crystallography (Deller & Rupp, 2014; Cuttitta et al, 2015; Wright et al, 2021; Cipriani et al, 2012) Most of these devices were built for certain beamlines or laboratories, or have been commercialized, but at rather high costs due to the materials, mechanics and motors involved. They are only being used by a limited number of facilities and laboratories
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