RE : Novexin polymer used in protein crystallization

 

We have been routinely using NVoy Polymer as an additive for our protein crystallization trials for the past 6 months.  We initially used NVoy because of it's detergent-like properties which allow us to work with partly soluble proteins in crystallisation trials without the draw-backs of standard detergents.

 The pharmacological importance and commercial sensitivity of our work does not permit me to provide details, however, in summary;

We have found that NVoy Polymer is able to increase the solubility of otherwise only partly soluble proteins allowing us to use them at concentrations suitable for protein crystallisation.

Using NVoy Polymer in our crystallisation trial has, in a number of cases, led to the production of diffraction quality crystals that could not be obtained using other additives.  NVoy Polymer has been particularly effective in crystallizing difficult proteins that have many exposed surface hydrophobic patches and which are prone to aggregation and precipitation.

NVoy Polymer is now routinely used as an additive at concentrations of 0.5 - 10 mg/ml in our standard hanging drop vapor diffusion experiments regardless the protein concentration.  NVoy polymer is simply added to the crystallization drop during optimization as a crystallization additive and has been shown, in some cases, to produce larger crystals in shorter time.

In cases where NVoy did not affect an improvement in crystal quality it has been shown to not affect the experiment negatively either, with crystals being equivalent both with and without NVoy in the crystallsation drop.

NVoy has also been used throughout the protein production process with excellent results.  It is my view that NVoy is a reagent that should be on the shelf in any protein lab that encounters problem proteins, to be used as and when necessary throughout the protein production or crystallisation to, hopefully, affect an improvement in results.