I am impressed that within a matter of hours, we now have a number of references for papers describing so-called in vivo crystallization. Wow, the benefits of a good network I guess. This kind of quick feedback would be fantastic for authors who are writing review articles...

Dave Waugh


On 2/15/13 3:27 PM, "Michael Kothe" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

My favorite:

Hum Mol Genet. 2000 Jul 22;9(12):1779-86.
Link between a novel human gammaD-crystallin allele and a unique cataract phenotype explained by protein crystallography.
Kmoch S, Brynda J, Asfaw B, Bezouska K, Novák P, Rezácová P, Ondrová L, Filipec M, Sedlácek J, Elleder M.

http://hmg.oxfordjournals.org/content/9/12/1779.long


________________________________

From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Frank von Delft
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2013 3:01 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Sighting of Protein Crystals in Vivo?!


Of course, common in baculo:

    http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/emboj.2009.352

The EMBO Journal (2010) 29,505–514
How baculovirus polyhedra fit square pegs into round holes to robustly package viruses
Xiaoyun Ji, Geoff Sutton, Gwyndaf Evans, Danny Axford, Robin Owen and David I Stuart



On 15/02/2013 20:00, Savvas Savvides wrote:
Hi Jacob,

check out Figure 1 in

Natively inhibited Trypanosoma brucei cathepsin B structure determined by using an X-ray laser.
Redecke L, et al.
Science. 2013 Jan 11;339(6116):227-30.

and

In vivo protein crystallization opens new routes in structural biology.
Koopmann R. Nature Methods. 2012 Jan 29;9(3):259-62.

best
Savvas




On 15 Feb 2013, at 20:44, Jacob Keller wrote:

Dear Crystallographers,

I was looking at some live, control HEK cells expressing just eGFP, and to my great surprise, saw littered across the dish what appeared to be small fluorescent needles (see attached--sorry about the size, but it's only ~1MB total.) Can these possibly be fortuitous protein crystals? They were too small to mount I think, and for what it's worth, parallel-transfected HeLa cells did not have these things. But, some needles could be seen in the DIC images as well, and the needles were only fluorescent with GFP filter sets, and not CFP, YFP, or texas red filters. I thought of whale myoglobin crystallizing on the decks of ships, but never thought I would see this....

Jacob



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David S. Waugh, Ph.D.
Macromolecular Crystallography Laboratory
Center for Cancer Research
National Cancer Institute
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