Experiment

Experiment

A.013

Experiment

Crystallisation experiments in the COSIMA-1 mission

Primary investigator

Drenth, J.

Co-investigator

Hol, W.G.J.

Contact point

State University Groningen, Department of Chemistry, Laboratory of Biophysical Chemistry

Category

Protein Crystallisation

Main research area

Protein Structure Determination

Keywords

Crystal Structure Determination

Abstract

On August 5, 1988 an INTOSPACE payload COSIMA was launched as a piggyback payload with the Chinese long March II rocket from the Jiuquan Launch site in the Autonomous Province of Inner Mongolia. The COSIMA payload contained 104 samples for protein . .... (full text)

Objectives

Porcine phospholipase A2
Phospholipase A2 is a phospholipid digesting enzyme of MW 14, 000. It is produced by several sources but we have specifically studied the enzyme from the pancreas. The structure of the bovine enzyme has been determined to a ..... (full text)

Reference

J. Drenth et al: Crystal Growth of Biological Metarials in Fluid Science and Material Science in Space. Springer Verlag, Berlin/Heidelberg, 1987.

Standard method

Vapour Diffusion

Experiment procedure

Transglycosylase
This enzyme is extracted from E. Coli and is now cloned into an overproducer for easy isolation of milligram amounts of highly pure protein (Keck, Biochemistry , University of Groningen). The enzyme is detrimental to .... (full text)

Results

Porcine phospholipase A
The experiments were done with methanol as the precipitating agent. 10 mg/ml protein in 10 mM BES-buffer with 5 mM CaCl2 ( Ca-ions are essential for activity) was put, in the form of 10 µ l drops, in the .... (full text)

Funding agency

SRON

Launcher

Chinese Long March II

Mission

COSIMA-1

Facility

COSIMA

Duration

189 hr, 14 min.

Success

Final conclusion

The experiment with porcine phospholipase A2 and with transglycosylase have not shown a clear improvement of the crystal quality under microgravity growing conditions.

Operational Constraints

Poor Ground Conditions

General

Other related experiments:

Drenth on Cosima-2 (1989)

Drenth on Cosima-3 (1990)

Drenth on Cosima-4 (7.10.1991)