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Inhibition of protein crystallization by evolutionary negative designJonathan P. K. Doye, Ard A. Louis and Michele VendruscoloPhysical Biology 1, P9-P13 (2004)AbstractIn this perspective we address the question: why are proteins seemingly so hard to crystallize? We suggest that this is because of evolutionary negative design, i.e. proteins have evolved not to crystallize, because crystallization, as with any type of protein aggregation, compromises the viability of the cell. There is much evidence in the literature that supports this hypothesis, including the effect of mutations on the crystallizability of a protein, the correlations found in the properties of crystal contacts in bioinformatics databases and the positive use of protein crystallization by bacteria and viruses.The full paper is available from Physical Biology Online. and the Los Alamos preprint server (and mirrors: UK, France, Germany). |