Welcome
to the pictorial library of crystallization drop phenomena.
by Terese
Bergfors,
Please send me your comments about this
"library. Did you find it useful? Anything unclear or missing? Do you have
some pictures you want me to include? Send me an e-mail terese@xray.bmc.uu.se.
Have you ever looked in the microscope and
asked yourself things like:
"What
IS this stuff in my drop?"
"What
does phase separation look like?"
"Is
this what people call a spherulite?"
The pictorial library of crystallization drop gives you the answers to these questions and more in the form of 7 guided tutorials.
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The first thing you should learn is that the appearance (habit, morphology, etc.) of your crystal is NOT what is important. |
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How do I tell a "good" precipitate from a "bad" precipitate? |
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Click on this tutorial to learn what spherulites, oils, phase separation, and gels look like in the drops. These, like crystals and precpitates, are solid phases of protein. If you get any of these phenomena in your drop, you can be close to the right conditions for obtaining crystals. Therefore it is important to be able to recognize these phenomena when you see them. |
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Are needles better than plates? How do I get from long, thin crystals to big fat ones? Click on this tutorial. |
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Once you get crystals in the initial screen, they will probably have to be optimized. For an example of an optimization screen with one additive, click here. |