Vapour-diffusion protein crystallization in newly designed pore strips

Use of hanging drops in a pore rather than on cover slips increases the total surface accessible for evaporation. This will have an effect on the kinetics of crystallization and on the degree of convection, both of which could affect the nucleation rate. The crystallization of a set of well known proteins in pore strips has been tested. The results show that crystallization in pore strips is possible, and that nucleation is comparable with that in hanging drops despite the use of smaller volumes. Nonetheless, in about 25% of the cases, faster nucleation was observed. In a few cases, different crystal forms appeared, suggesting that pore crystallization may allow a different trajectory through the phase diagram compared with the hanging drop.