High mobility of lattice molecules and defects during the early stage of protein crystallization
High mobility of lattice molecules and defects during the early stage of protein crystallization
复制标题
蛋白质结晶早期晶格分子和缺陷的高流动性
DOI：
10.1039/c9sm02382h
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发表时间：
2020
期刊：
影响因子：
3.4
通讯作者：
Kimura Yuki
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Yamazaki Tomoya;Van Driessche Alexander E. S.;Kimura Yuki
蛋白质晶体由于其独特的性质，不仅可用于分子结构分析，而且可作为功能材料。虽然结晶过程中缺陷的产生和传播在蛋白质晶体的最终性质中起着关键作用，但这些过程的动力学却知之甚少。通过时间分辨的液池透射电子显微镜，我们观察到，纳米级的晶体缺陷是令人惊讶的移动的在早期阶段的溶菌酶作为模型蛋白质的结晶。缺陷的这种高度动态行为揭示了晶格分子在整个晶体结构中是移动的。此外，缺陷的消失表明，分子间键可以打破和改革迅速与很少的能量成本，在理论研究中报告。所有这些发现都与普遍接受的晶格是刚性的，单个晶格分子的移动性非常有限的概念形成鲜明对比。
Protein crystals are expected to be useful not only for their molecular structure analysis but also as functional materials due to their unique properties. Although the generation and the propagation of defects during crystallization play critical roles in the final properties of protein crystals, the dynamics of these processes are poorly understood. By time-resolved liquid-cell transmission electron microscopy, we observed that nanosized crystal defects are surprisingly mobile during the early stages of the crystallization of a lysozyme as a model protein. This highly dynamic behavior of defects reveals that the lattice molecules are mobile throughout the crystal structure. Moreover, the disappearance of the defects indicated that intermolecular bonds can break and reform rapidly with little energetic cost, as reported in theoretical studies. All these findings are in marked contrast to the generally accepted notion that crystal lattices are rigid with very limited mobility of individual lattice molecules.