The first report of structural analysis of a nucleic acid using crystals grown in space.

ABSTRACT: For the success of structure-based drug design, three-dimensional structures solved by X-ray crystallography at atomic resolution are mandatory. In order to obtain high-quality single crystals with strong diffraction power, crystallization under microgravity conditions has been attempted for proteins. Since nucleic acid duplexes have chemical, structural and crystallographic characteristics that differ from those of globular proteins, such as intermolecular repulsion due to negative charge and molecular and crystallographic anisotropies, it is interesting to investigate whether microgravity crystallization improves the crystal growth of nucleic acids. However, to our knowledge there has been only one report on nucleic acid crystallization in a microgravity environment, and there have been

SUBMITTER: Ando S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11866410 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature