Yafeng, Most proteins are very stable in the frozen state. There are a few that do not like being frozen. And shipping proteins in the frozen state is most desired such that the sample can get to its destination without warming up and degrading. Specifically, I am taking about doing cryocrystallography. For the most part, protein crystals are not usually frozen. We are planning to go to a synchrotron source. The high energy x-rays will cause the crystals to "die". To slow this down, you can freeze crystals. It is ideal to mount and freeze the crystals where you have the most control, in your lab, rather than the facilities at the synchrotron. Thus your crystals are ready to be placed on the goniometer. Thus one is not wasting precious synchrotron time by having to mount and freeze crystals while also trying to obtain data. -- Robert D Scavetta Department of Biochemistry 1447 Boyce Hall University of California Riverside, CA 92521 email: scavetta@xtreme.ucr.edu phone: (909) 787-4196 fax: (909) 787-3590
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Mar 20 2007 - 03:13:18 CST