Have you tried seeding ? And another suggestion, if the small ones already diffract to 3.5 Å on a home source, why don't you try to go to a synchrotron ? Big is also not always better, they might freeze worse than your small ones or might have growth artifacts etc.
If you take several huge crystals and touch them gently with e.g. a hair from a Unicorn* then let it sit and recover you might get lucky. Jürgen * can be replaced by any stronger hair of your preference e.g. pot-bellied pig, horse, cats anything that's a bit more sturdy or simply the Microtools from HR - Jürgen Bosch Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute 615 North Wolfe Street, W8708 Baltimore, MD 21205 Phone: +1-410-614-4742 Lab: +1-410-614-4894 Fax: +1-410-955-2926 http://web.mac.com/bosch_lab/<http://web.me.com/bosch_lab/> On Feb 8, 2011, at 9:06 PM, Wataru Kagawa wrote: Hi all, I have crystals growing by the hanging-drop method, using 24-well VDX plates and Hampton Research siliconized glass cover slides. Most crystals are attached to the cover slide, and I am having difficulties detaching the crystals (using a cryoloop) without breaking them. There are few smaller crystals floating in the drop, and they diffract X-rays pretty well (clean spots, ~3.5A resolution using RAXIS). However, I would like to try the bigger ones, because they may diffract to a higher resolution. Any suggestions for detaching crystals from cover slides will be greatly appreciated. Wataru
