Crystallization of high-quality protein crystals using an external electric field

Abstract

The effect of a 20 kHz external electric field on the quality of tetragonal hen egg white (HEW) lysozyme crystals was investigated using X-ray diffraction rocking-curve measurements. The full width at half-maximum was found to be larger for high-order reflections but smaller for low-order reflections. In particular, it was revealed that a large amount of local strain is accumulated in tetragonal HEW lysozyme crystals grown under an applied field at 20 kHz. Comparison with previous results obtained for crystals grown with an applied field at 1 MHz [Koizumi, Uda, Fujiwara, Tachibana, Kojima & Nozawa (2013).J. Appl. Cryst.46, 25–29] indicated that improvement of the protein crystal quality could be achieved by selection of an appropriate frequency for the applied electric field, which has a significant effect on the growth of the solid.