Autotaxin (ATX), a pyrophosphatase/phosphodiesterase enzyme, is a promising drug target for many indications and is only distantly related to enzymes of previously determined structure. Here, the cloning, expression, purification, crystallization and preliminary diffraction analysis of ATX are reported.

Diffraction-quality crystals of UDP-N-acetylenolpyruvylglucosamine reductase (MurB) from S. aureus have been prepared. The crystals belong to the cubic space group I2₁3, with unit-cell parameters a = b = c = 178.99 Å.