Journal of Applied Crystallography

Volume 33, Part 3 Number 2 (June 2000)

laboratory notes

J. Appl. Cryst. (2000). 33, 988-989 [ doi:10.1107/S0021889800005136 ]

A simple technique to control macromolecular crystal nucleation efficiently using a standard vapour-diffusion setup

L. Jovine

Abstract: Excessive nucleation often leads to a large number of small macromolecular crystals that are not useful for X-ray diffraction analysis. Crystals with dimensions suitable for data collection can be reproducibly obtained by releasing, for a discrete amount of time, the vapour pressure in both hanging- and sitting-drop experiments, set up at lower precipitant concentrations than those required for crystallization.