Hi, Zhiyi: You can always put a layer of oil on the top of your drop when you open the coverslip. It will get you more time to mount the crystals.
Good luck Meng-Chiao Ho On Tue, 2010-01-26 at 11:48 -0500, Zhiyi Wei wrote: > I forgot to mention a phenomenon when I did crystal mounting. I found > that if open a coverslip, phase separation will appear in drops in > minutes and damage to the crystals. > > And I have tried additive screen. The optimized crystals are really > big (a few hundred microns) with sharp edge but diffraction pattern is > similar. > > On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 10:42 AM, Zhiyi Wei <ustcwebri...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Dear all, > > > > I got a problem with my crystals. I have two total different proteins > > that both can be crystallized in the condition with PEG3350 and Tacsimate > > (although the concentrations are different) with different shapes. The > > crystals look big and beautiful. However, when I test them in synchrotron, > > both of these two types of crystals showed poor diffractions. As showed in > > the attached diffraction image, the diffraction is up to ~4 A but smear in > > one direction while <8 A in the other direction. The interesting thing is > > that the diffraction pattern is similar for all crystals (from two different > > proteins) that I tested without exception although they belong to different > > space groups. So, I wonder whether these kind of pattern is caused by > > Tacsimate (I don't know what it is) and how to rescue these crystals. Any > > suggestions or comments? > > > > Thanks a lot! > > > > Best, > > Zhiyi > >
