A miniature airlock system to aid the cryo-cooling of protein crystals grown under anoxic conditions

Crystallographic studies of structures and mechanisms dioxygen-employing enzymes or oxygen-sensitive proteins usually require these molecules to be prepared crystallized under anoxic conditions in gloveboxes. Handling, cryo-cooling extraction crystals from gloveboxes for X-ray data collection can a tricky operation, during which samples might ruined if they are accidentally exposed atmospheric oxygen. This work reports the design new miniature airlock system describes associated method order simplify tasks. The allows flash-cooling harvested glovebox directly into an external liquid nitrogen container via while maintaining strict conditions. was assessed using hen egg-white lysozyme soaked dihydroresorufin (an O 2 indicator) with reduced tRNA-hydroxylase enzyme MiaE.