The effect of audible sound on protein crystallisation
Chen-Yan Zhang1,†, Yan Wang1,†, Robin Schubert2, Christian Betzel2,*, and Da-Chuan Yin1,*
1Institute for Special Environmental Biophysics, Key Laboratory for Space Bioscience and Biotechnology, School of Life Sciences, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, Shaanxi, PR China
2University of Hamburg, Laboratory for Structural Biology of Infection & Inflammation, Institute for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Notkestrasse 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany
Email of communicating author: Christian.Betzel@uni-hamburg.de, and Da-Chuan Yin: yindc@nwpu.edu.cn.
The successful crystallisation of proteins is important because their molecular three dimensional structures can be obtained through X-ray diffraction when in their crystalline form [1]. Investigation of the crystallisation process is beneficial for this purpose. We have reported that protein crystallisation is sensitive to audible sound, which is commonly present but is often ignored. Here we investigate the effect of audible sound parameters, especially frequency, on a protein crystallisation. We show a significant facilitation of protein crystallisation using 5000 Hz audible sound (Figure1), possible mechanism was also tried to be clarified [2]. Suitably controlled audible sound can be beneficial for promoting protein crystallisation. Therefore, audible sound can be used as a simple tool to promote protein crystallisation. In addition, the processing of other types of materials may also be affected by audible sound.
Figure 1. Crystallisation screening results with and without audible sounds. (a) Ratio of crystallisation screening hits with audible sound irradiation to that without sound irradiation. The initial concentrations for lysozyme and concanavalin A were both 10 mg/ml. (Error bar: standard deviation, n=4). (b) Crystallisation hits at 1000 Hz. (Error bar: standard deviation, n=4). (c) Crystallisation hits at 5000 Hz. (Error bar: standard deviation, n=4). (d) Number of crystallisation hits at 1000 Hz (red circles) and 5000 Hz (blue triangle) normalized to the number of hits without sound irradiation.