Protein crystal growth in microgravity: Status and commercial implications

Abstract

Since 1985, The Center for Macromolecular Crystallography has conducted an extensive program of macromolecular crystal growth experiments in microgravity. This Center has designed and built crystal growth flight hardware that has an excellent productivity and reliability record. In addition, several other crystallography laboratories have conducted macromolecular crystal growth experiments in microgravity and developed hardware to house their experiments. These experiments have successfully demonstrated that the low gravity environment can be used to produce crystals of proteins and other macromolecules that are superior to crystals of the same compounds grown on earth. Improved, extended x-ray diffraction data collected from space-grown crystals has contributed to the solution of the three-dimensional structures of many proteins and has augmented structure-based drug design studies targeting several diseases and degenerative conditions. The production of produce high-quality crystals of medically relevant macromolecules is important because of the rapidly growing role of macromolecular crystallography in biology and medicine. Large, high-quality crystals are critical to solving the structures of biologically important macromolecules, but it is often difficult to obtain these crystals because of the physical and chemical properties of the compounds. Work by this and other crystallography laboratories has shown that conducting macromolecular crystallization experiments in the microgravity environment alleviates convection and sedimentation effects, and frequently results in crystals that yield x-ray diffraction data that is superior to their earth-grown counterparts. The improved diffraction data translates directly to faster, more accurate solutions to the three-dimensional structures of the target molecules.