{"id":37364,"date":"2021-03-30T09:00:46","date_gmt":"2021-03-30T07:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?p=37364"},"modified":"2024-03-22T14:26:24","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T13:26:24","slug":"potw2113","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2113\/","title":{"rendered":"Droplet beauty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>For X-ray crystallography, scientists create protein crystals by evaporating water from droplets of protein solution \u2013 similar to what happens when a drop of salt water or sugar solution dries up. Afterwards, they expose the crystals to X-rays. As the X-rays pass through the crystals, they form patterns that can be interpreted to determine the molecular structure of the protein. Because the molecules trapped in the crystal are aligned in a very regular way, the patterns produced by the X-rays can provide highly precise information about the location of individual atoms in the protein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For some molecules, such as membrane proteins, obtaining crystals is particularly tricky, because their structure collapses as soon as it is removed from the cell membrane. To create a membrane-like environment for them, scientists use a mixture of lipids (fat molecules), water, and protein to create something called a lipid cubic phase. In many cases, this enables membrane proteins to form crystals while maintaining their original molecular structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Proteins are crystallised on crystallisation plates, like the one in this image, which Kim Bartels from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.embl-hamburg.de\/research\/unit\/loew\/\">L\u00f6w group<\/a> at EMBL Hamburg was working on. She took a highly concentrated solution of a molecule that interacts with the protein she was interested in, and place droplets of it on the plate. The volume of the droplet in the image is just 5 microlitres \u2013 five millionths of a litre \u2013 but it\u2019s enough to grow good crystals. Once the water evaporates, the scientists will pipette on top of it another droplet with a volume fifty times smaller, containing the membrane protein. By doing this, they aim to obtain crystals in which the protein and the other molecule are bound together. This will enable them to determine how exactly the two molecules interact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Credit: Andrey Gruzinov\/EMBL<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you have a stunning picture of your science, your lab or your site, you can submit it <a href=\"mailto:mathias.jaeger@embl.de\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists at EMBL Hamburg use droplets of protein solution to grow protein crystals. By exposing the crystals to X-rays, they are able to determine the protein\u2019s molecular structure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":96,"featured_media":37368,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17591],"tags":[29,53,5768,11022,35,1714],"embl_taxonomy":[9596,19325,5150],"class_list":["post-37364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-picture-of-the-week","category-science-technology","tag-crystallography","tag-hamburg","tag-macromolecular-crystallography","tag-spotlight","tag-structural-biology","tag-x-ray-crystallography","embl_taxonomy-embl-hamburg","embl_taxonomy-low-group-visiting","embl_taxonomy-structural-biology-embl-hamburg"],"acf":{"featured":false,"show_featured_image":false,"color":"#007B53","link_color":"#fff","article_intro":"","related_links":false,"article_sources":false,"in_this_article":false,"youtube_url":"","mp4_url":"","video_caption":"","press_contact":"None","translations":false,"vf_locked":false},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[{"uuid":"a:3:{i:0;s:36:\"b14d3f13-5670-44fb-8970-e54dfd9c921a\";i:1;s:36:\"89e00fee-87f4-482e-a801-4c3548bb6a58\";i:2;s:36:\"613c4de5-1775-447f-af71-4b07085318e9\";}","parents":[],"name":["EMBL Hamburg"],"slug":"embl-hamburg","description":"Where &gt; All EMBL sites &gt; EMBL Hamburg"},{"uuid":"a:3:{i:0;s:36:\"302cfdf7-365b-462a-be65-82c7b783ebf7\";i:1;s:36:\"2dc39890-6c01-47bf-ac78-d42abdb10079\";i:2;s:36:\"ff75b8fe-d6a7-4d0e-94a4-c9c1d69ed777\";}","parents":[],"name":["L\u00f6w Group (Visiting)"],"slug":"low-group-visiting","description":"What &gt; Structural Biology (EMBL Hamburg) &gt; L\u00f6w Group (Visiting)","deprecated":true},{"uuid":"a:3:{i:0;s:36:\"302cfdf7-365b-462a-be65-82c7b783ebf7\";i:1;s:36:\"7ca3ce91-dc32-47ea-8d4b-7a53c3a3a9fd\";i:2;s:36:\"2dc39890-6c01-47bf-ac78-d42abdb10079\";}","parents":[],"name":["Structural Biology (EMBL Hamburg)"],"slug":"structural-biology-embl-hamburg","description":"What &gt; Research Units &gt; Structural Biology (EMBL Hamburg)"}],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Droplet beauty | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Scientists at EMBL Hamburg use droplets of protein solution to grow protein crystals that will let them determine the protein\u2019s structure.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2113\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Droplet beauty | EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Scientists at EMBL Hamburg use droplets of protein solution to grow protein crystals that will let them determine the protein\u2019s structure.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2113\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-03-30T07:00:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-03-22T13:26:24+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/POTW-Gruzinov-Droplet_beauty-scaled.jpeg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dorota Badowska\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@d_badowska\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dorota Badowska\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2113\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2113\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dorota Badowska\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/b8ae50efcd7533f0ab2ec368736b1d04\"},\"headline\":\"Droplet beauty\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-03-30T07:00:46+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-03-22T13:26:24+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2113\/\"},\"wordCount\":317,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw2113\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/POTW-Gruzinov-Droplet_beauty-scaled.jpeg\",\"keywords\":[\"crystallography\",\"hamburg\",\"macromolecular crystallography\",\"spotlight\",\"structural biology\",\"x-ray crystallography\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Picture of the week\",\"Science &amp; 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