To scavenge or not to scavenge: that is the question

Analysis of a series of diffraction data sets measured from four native as well as four nicotinic acid-soaked crystals of trypsin at 100 K shows a high variability in radiation-sensitivity among individual crystals for both nicotinic acid-soaked and native crystals. The level of radiation-sensitivity and the extent of its variability is statistically indistinguishable between the two conditions. This suggests that this potential scavenger does not have any statistically significant effect on the amount of radiation damage incurred in the crystals on X-ray irradiation. This is in contrast to previous results [Kauffmann et al. (2006), Structure, 14, 1099–1105] where only one crystal specimen was used for each condition (native and nicotinic acid-soaked).