MiTeGen has a set of soft plastic microtools that are inteded for this kind of stuff, and I have had suscess using them to break out single crystals from clumps or fused crystals. You can either load in a pencil or mount in a base. Also nylon loops. You might need to have one tool in each hand (one loop, one microtool, etc), and you can usually find a way to pull apart the cluster and get single crystals. Or if you sort of crush the point where all the needles, rods. plates (whatever you have) meet, you will probably get some single fragments. If you don't want to buy those tools just try 2 nylon loops, and lots of patience. Nat
On Tue, Apr 13, 2010 at 4:49 AM, Enrico Stura <est...@cea.fr> wrote: > Amit Sharma, > > I second Tim's suggestions. > > The first experiment is the following. > Set up several experiments at constantly decreasing precipitant > concentrations. > Streak seed all of them. If in any of those you can get non-clustered > crystals > non matter what size, seeding can solve your problem. > To restore crystal size follow the rest of Tim's list. > > Enrico. > > > On Mon, 12 Apr 2010 23:01:10 +0200, Tim Gruene <t...@shelx.uni-ac.gwdg.de> > wrote: > >> Have you tried anything, yet? The list of answers can be quite long. >> A couple of keywords: >> - micro-seeding >> - macro-seeding >> - cross-seeding >> - additive screens >> - extend to purification protocol >> - change temperature, pH, etc. >> - have you searched around the current conditions >> ... >> >> if you describe a little what you have done so far we can also get an idea >> of >> your status of experience and adapt the answers accordingly. >> >> Kind regards, Tim > > -- > Enrico A. Stura D.Phil. (Oxon) , Tel: 33 (0)1 69 08 4302 Office > Room 19, Bat.152, Tel: 33 (0)1 69 08 9449 Lab > LTMB, SIMOPRO, IBiTec-S, CE Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, FRANCE > http://www-dsv.cea.fr/en/institutes/institute-of-biology-and-technology-saclay-ibitec-s/unites-de-recherche/department-of-molecular-engineering-of-proteins-simopro/molecular-toxinology-and-biotechnology-laboratory-ltmb/crystallogenesis-e.-stura > http://www.chem.gla.ac.uk/protein/mirror/stura/index2.html > e-mail: est...@cea.fr Fax: 33 (0)1 69 08 90 71 >
