A Brief Analysis of Capillary Sealing Methods and Their Effectiveness

Protein crystals and the solutions from which they are grown must be carefully protected against dehydration. In the absence of a proper seal, the crystals will dehydrate and lose their original properties and subsequently the ability to diffract X-rays. We conducted a systematic study of the efficacy of the most common sealing materials in use and we report the results here. The study shows that no single material is completely effective in...