Dear Prashant,
I have been working with a protein-protein complex expressed in mammalian cells, and that complex in very poorly soluble. Even with 500mM NaCl in the buffer, I cannot concentrate the complex to above 3 mg/mL. I tried an old school technique and precipitated
my protein complex with ammonium sulphate (~80% saturation) on ice. When I recovered my complex, I was able to get almost 9mg/mL without any precipitation at all. The sample still crystallizes, but I believe now that the sulphate ion is shielding/masking part
of the protein better than the NaCl did. Perhaps this would be worth a try for you as well?
Another thing you can try with a weakly soluble protein is to set up various ratios between the protein and the reservoir solution in your crystallization drop.
One point I have not yet seen mentioned is that some proteins are hyper sensitive to changes in temperature. In my opinion, any protein sample should be kept cold, (on ice at the bench) UNLESS you have good reason and biophysical data to show otherwise.
If you are concentrating at room temperature, try concentrating at 4C if you can, you might be pleasantly surprised.
Good Luck!
Bryan Prince
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Some things to try to increase solubility:
1. Move the buffer pH away from the expected pI. Proteins have minimum solubility near their pI values.
2. Add solubilizing agents to the solution, e.g., 20-50% glycerol. (This may alter you crystallization screening strategy)
3. Include some inert salt in the solution to minimize electrostatic interactions, e.g. 100-500 mM NaCl.
Ultimately, your protein just may not be very soluble. That is potentially OK...it will ppt and maybe xtallize well at low concentration.
Roger Rowlett
Hi,i am concentrating my protein using centricon filter, but it is precipitated soon. Please help me solving this problem.Thanks.
Prashant DeshmukhDept. of Biophysics,NIMHANS,Bangalore 560 029,