Protein crystals are often difficult to grow and can suffer damage on the way from the crystallization drop to the X-ray beam. The damage may be caused by manual handling, change of environment during harvesting, adverse effects of cryo-protection solutions and the dramatic change of temperature due to cryo-cooling. Traditional X-ray experiments to test crystals take time and effort and can often prove inconclusive. The Agilent PX Scanner enables characterization of macromolecular crystals with X-rays, in-situ, without extracting crystals from the crystallization plate. It establishes a “baseline” for crystal quality and allows the user to assess the diffraction resolution limits before crystals are subjected to any manipulation. Crystals grown in the same well of a crystallization plate will often have very different diffraction properties, despite growing under identical conditions. The application emphasizes the importance of in-situ testing to enable good, high resolution diffraction.
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