Hi Friends,
Here is a summary for my question regarding "Glove boxes for crystallization". They are given approximately in the order they received. I have also kept the name and e-mail address for any additional information.
Hope some you will find this information helpful for your research. Thanks again to all members who shared their experience.
Kind regards,
Mathews
Glove box for crystallization summary
Oryx1-6 robot in a Bactron X anaerobic chamber:
Oryx1-6 robot in a Bactron X anaerobic chamber for crystallization by the microbatch-under-oil method. For details use the following link http://www.douglas.co.uk/news.htm Patrick Shaw Stewart [[log in to unmask]]
Belle Technology Glove boxes:
Several people are happy with Belle Technlogy (http://www.belle-technology.com/) Glove boxes. Following links gives access to two labs where Belle glove boxes are installed.
http://www.csb.wfu.edu/xray.php
http://www.astbury.leeds.ac.uk/facil/Xray/xray.htm
Belle box for anaerobic protein purification, xtal tray setup and crystal freezing.
Helen Toogood [[log in to unmask]]; Conn Mallett [[log in to unmask]]; Roberto Steiner [[log in to unmask]].
Plas-labs type glove box (http://www.plas-labs.com/)
Mark modified the glove box (10 years ago) to mount a fixed microscope in the glass face. Focussing was by means of a jack inside the hutch - crude but it did work!! I did all my crystallisations by hand by liquid:liquid diffusion in glass capilliaries, but I guess it would be easier to use a small robot in the glove box itself these days.... I did find that a lot of the plasticware did not EVER get completely oxygen free - part of the reason i ended up using glass capilliaries (also these could be removed from the box and stored in an incubator if required). This may not affect you depending on exactly how sensitive your protein is and also how long it takes to crystallise. Mark Roe [[log in to unmask]]
A suggestion!!
By the way, I'm pretty sure that the home-made glove box that Max Perutz used for mounting dexoy haemoglobin crystals is still in MRC-LMB Cambridge, maybe you can get hold of it ? Boaz Shaanan [[log in to unmask]]
Glove bag filled with Argon:
We were successful in crystallizing two ferredoxins under strict anaerobic conditions using the much cheaper solution of a glove bag and filling it with argon. I guess that in both cases (box and bag) the thickness of the gloves is a problem especially if you are dealing with cover slides. The glove bag occupies also much less space however its major problem was the very bad visualization of the inner space and finally we added a plexiglas window on the bag. Needless to say how essential is not to forget anything outside the bag/box before starting the crystallization set up.
Finally you can also consider the possibility to use a crystallization robot. In some of them it is possible to create anaerobic conditions using argon. Nikos Pinotsis [[log in to unmask]].
Likes glove boxes better than glove bag plus some additional information.
I prefer a glove box to a glove bag only because the format is more rigid and I placed a magnifying glass on the outside of the window in order to view my crystals. This is perfect for small molecule, but may prove not so good with macromolecule in hanging drop wells. The microbatch may be more useful.
But, since then, I have seen several boxes which have a modification for a microscope. This may meet your needs a little better than just a regular glove box.
As far as glove bags, I have seen and used these for working with crystals in nitrogen and argon environments. If you are setting up crystal trays, I would suggest Argon as it will fill wells and push up the oxygen. In general, you would fill, void and replace the gas contents several times to rid the bag of oxygen. Then the argon will sit in the tray as it is heavy.
But, when I mounted crystals, I took liquid nitrogen in a dewar into the glove bag, opened the wells, looped my samples and froze directly into liquid nitrogen. This is relatively simple under nitrogen gas, but difficult under Argon since the argon will condense and solidify at 77K!! Kris Tesh [[log in to unmask]]
Glove boxes and bags from Coy lab (www.coylab.com)
They make a glove bag which is good enough for biological anaerobic work and is lighter and (I believe) cheaper. The ability of the bag to change volume when you move your hands in the gloves or bring things into or remove things from the box is a great help. Henry Bellamy [[log in to unmask]]
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