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Figure 3
Images of large protein crystals for neutron crystallography grown by dialysis and counter-diffusion. (a) Crystal (volume of ∼1 mm3, scale bar 100 µm) of hen egg-white lysozyme grown in a temperature-controlled dialysis flow cell of 80 µl (courtesy of M. Budayova-Spano). (b) Crystals of inorganic pyrophosphatase from Thermococcus thioreducens grown in counter-diffusion capillaries of inner diameter 2 mm and length 50 mm (starting precipitant on the left; courtesy of J. Ng). The largest crystals (volume of ∼5 mm3) grew under microgravity. The gradient of supersaturation anticipated in counter-diffusion experiments is clearly seen in the capillaries of microgravity-grown crystals (top, with crystals of increasing size from the left to the right), but is absent in the capillaries of Earth-grown crystals (bottom) because of harmful convection in the large capillaries.

IUCrJ
Volume 4| Part 4| July 2017| Pages 340-349
ISSN: 2052-2525
https://doi.org/10.1107/S2052252517006595