DESIGIN - A GUIDE TO PROTEIN CRYSTALLIZATION EXPERIMENTS

Existing guidelines for crystallizing proteins generally require subst antial amounts of protein and scarce laboratory resources. To address this problem we have developed the program DESIGN, which, suited to da ily laboratory usage, utilizes statistics when screening variables of crystallization, The program DESIGN is described in considerable detai l and examples of its outcome and capabilities are shown. In addition, a new scoring scale for crystallization trials is described. It is ex pected that the use of such an approach may provide additional constra ints toward crystallizing the protein, even if the conditions applied are not successful. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.