High-throughput crystal-optimization strategies in the South Paris Yeast Structural Genomics Project: one size fits all?
Résumé
Crystallization has long been regarded as one of the major bottlenecks in highthroughput structural determination by X-ray crystallography. Structural genomics projects have addressed this issue by using robots to set up automated crystal screens using nanodrop technology. This has moved the bottleneck from obtaining the first crystal hit to obtaining diffraction-quality crystals, as crystal optimization is a notoriously slow process that is difficult to automatize. This article describes the high-throughput optimization strategies used in the Yeast Structural Genomics project, with selected successful examples.