Dear Jeroen and Shane,
I am quoting from memory only, as I am not as thoroughly familiar
with the crystallisation literature as I would wish to be, but I can
remember David Blow (with whom I started my PhD in 1972) telling me
that, as far as he was aware, the hanging drop vapour diffusion method
was invented by Robert W. (Bob) Hartley, who used it to crystallise a
small protein called Barnase (Bacillus amyloliquefaciens RNAase) that
later acquired fame through its use by Alan Fersht's group as a guinea
pig for protein engineering. In fact Bob Hartley was visiting the
MRC-LMB at the time I went there, and left behind a stock of barnase
crystals from which the structure was later solved (Nature 1982 May
13;297(5862):162-4) using a single gold cyanide derivative and the
first instance of NCS averaging by an "improper" NCS.
This recollection was revived a couple of decades later when I
met David again. He told me that he was in the process of nominating
Bob Hartley for an award, in an attempt (unsuccessful AFAIK) to obtain
some degree of recognition from the community for this ground-breaking
innovation that was never published as such and was somehow taken for
granted once it was adopted - perhaps because it was such a brilliant
idea that it didn't need an inventor at all :-) .
Apologies if this anecdote turns out to overlook someone else's
earlier invention of the technique: I thought I would simply mention
it "as is", although I have a strong belief that David Blow would have
done his "due diligence" before writing such a nomination. If it is
indeed accurate, it would imply that there is no primary citation for
the actual invention of the technique other than "R.W. Hartley (1972,
unpublished results)".
With best wishes,
Gerard.
--
On Sat, Mar 17, 2018 at 12:02:39PM +0100, mesters wrote:
> A very good source for finding such (and other) information concerning
> crystallization of macromolecules is:
>
> Richard Giege, a historical perspective on protein crystallization from 1840
> to the present day, FEBS Journal 280 (2013) 6456–6497 !
>
> Vapour diffusion (in this case sitting drop) was first mentioned/reported by
> Hampel A, Labanauskas M, Connors PG, Kirkegard L, RajBhandary UL, Sigler PB
> & Bock RM (1968) Single crystals of transfer RNA from formylmethionine and
> phenylalanine transfer RNA’s. Science 162, 1384–1387.
>
> Either use the review as a reference or for the hanging drop version of the
> vapour technique use:
>
> McPherson, A. (1976) Methods Biochem. Anal. 23, 249-345
> or
> McPherson A. Crystallization of biological macromolecules. Cold Spring
> Harbor, NY: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press; 1999.
> (or McPherson A. Preparation and Analysis of Protein Crystals. New York:
> Wiley, 1982).
>
> Best
>
> Jeroen
>
> Am 17.03.18 um 07:00 schrieb Shane Caldwell:
> > Hi ccp4bb,
> >
> > I've been asked to provide a reference for making hanging-drop crystals,
> > and I suppose that I never realized the need to cite the technique
> > specifically. Is there a definitive publication where one could trace
> > the origins of the technique, or a particularly thorough textbook or
> > review?
> >
> > Shane Caldwell
> > [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> --
> Dr.math. et dis. nat. Jeroen R. Mesters
> Deputy, Senior Researcher & Lecturer
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> It is invariably the case that high resolution X-ray structures show
> significantly better agreement with solution observables such as coupling
> constants, 13C chemical shifts, and proton chemical shifts, than the
> corresponding NMR structures, including the very best ones. Hence, in most
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