The role of purification in the crystallization of proteins and nucleic acids

In structural biology, the crystallization of the macromolecules often represents the most challenging step. Beside classical factors which determine the solubility of macromolecules, purity of compounds is another major parameter governing crystal growth. With aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases and transfer ribonucleic acids as examples, it will be shown that molecules to be crystallized not only have to be pure in terms of contaminating molecules, but...