Abstract
A space experiment on the crystallization of lisozyme and glucose isomerase proteins in UK-1 and UK-2 crystallizers on the scientific equipment BELKA on the Bion-M no. 1 spacecraft was performed in April–May 2013. A ground-based experiment was carried out simultaneously at the Institute of Crystallography of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IC RAS). Transparent crystals were obtained in both cases. The lisozyme crystals grown in microgravity are larger than their terrestrial analogs. An optical study of glucose isomerase crystals grown in space has shown that the coalescence of equally oriented crystallites leads to the formation of quasi-single-crystal blocks. An X-ray diffraction experiment on lisozyme crystals has revealed the resolutions for crystals obtained under terrestrial conditions and in space to be 1.74 and 1.58 Å, respectively.
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Original Russian Text © S.S. Baskakova, S.I. Kovalyov, V.A. Kramarenko, L.A. Zadorozhnaya, M.S. Lyasnikova, Y.M. Dymshits, V.A. Shishkov, A.V. Egorov, A.M. Dolgin, A.E. Voloshin, M.V. Kovalchuk, 2015, published in Kristallografiya, 2015, Vol. 60, No. 1, pp. 150–157.
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Baskakova, S.S., Kovalyov, S.I., Kramarenko, V.A. et al. New scientific equipment for protein crystallization in microgravity, BELKA, and its approbation on the Bion-M No. 1 spacecraft. Crystallogr. Rep. 60, 148–154 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063774515010046
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1063774515010046