Liesegang-like patterns of Toll crystals grown in gel

Generating high-quality crystals remains a bottleneck in biological and materials sciences. Here a counter-diffusion method was used to improve the X-ray diffraction quality of the N-terminal domain of Drosophila melanogaster Toll receptor crystals. It was observed that crystallization occurred with a peculiar pattern along the capillary resembling Liesegang bands; this phenomenon is described at both macroscopic and atomic levels. It was found...