Porous crystals as scaffolds for structural biology

Abigail R Ward; Christopher D Snow

doi:10.1016/j.sbi.2019.12.008

Porous crystals as scaffolds for structural biology

Curr Opin Struct Biol. 2020 Feb:60:85-92. doi: 10.1016/j.sbi.2019.12.008. Epub 2019 Dec 30.

Authors

Abigail R Ward¹, Christopher D Snow²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA.
² Departments of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Chemistry Schools of Biomedical Engineering, Advanced Materials Discovery, Cell and Molecular Biology Program, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA. Electronic address: Christopher.Snow@colostate.edu.

PMID: 31896427
DOI: 10.1016/j.sbi.2019.12.008

Abstract

Molecular scaffolds provide routes to otherwise inaccessible organized states of matter. Scaffolds that are crystalline can be observed in atomic detail using diffraction, along with any guest molecules that have adopted coherent structures therein. This approach, scaffold-assisted structure determination, is not yet routine. However, with varying degrees of guest immobilization, porous crystal scaffolds have recently been decorated with guest molecules. Herein we analyze recent milestones, compare the relative advantages and challenges of different types of scaffold crystals, and weigh the merits of diverse guest installation strategies.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Biology / methods*
Porosity