@article{3059457,
    title = "Practical use of glycerol in protein crystallization published as part of the crystal growth & design virtual special issue on the 13th international conference on the crystallization of biological macromolecules (ICCBM13).",
    author = "Vera, L. and Czarny, B. and Georgiadis, D. and Dive, V. and Stura, E.A.",
    journal = "Crystal Growth and Design",
    year = "2011",
    volume = "11",
    number = "7",
    pages = "2755-2762",
    publisher = "American Chemical Society",
    doi = "10.1021/cg101364m",
    keywords = "Nucleation;  Proteins, Biological macromolecule;  Complementary methods;  Cryo-crystallography;  High-throughput operation;  Matrix metalloproteinase-12;  Practical problems;  Protein crystallization;  Synthetic inhibitors, Glycerol",
    abstract = "Glycerol is often used to protect proteins while stored frozen, to enhance their solubility and as a cryosolvent in cryocrystallography, but less so in protein crystallization, probably because it presents problems during screening. Understanding how glycerol affects protein crystallization is important for manual and for high throughput operations, and it will permit greater control of equilibration by vapor diffusion. Certain synthetic inhibitors of matrix metalloproteinase 12 (MMP-12) on mixing with the enzyme cause precipitation and induce nucleation, resulting in unusable microcrystal showers. Glycerol has been used to reduce this effect. We detail the practical problems and advantages in the use of glycerol with MMP-12 and how these observations may be extended to a larger range of problems, focusing on its use by the vapor diffusion method. Glycerol appears to be more effective when coupled with alternative and complementary methods that can similarly reduce excessive nucleation. © 2011 American Chemical Society."
}