Taking advantage of the multiplexing possibilities offered by the gCard™, we started a collaboration with University of Geneva (Laboratory of Pr. Thanos Halazonetis) to evaluate the feasibility of crystallizing proteins. The results were conclusive on various aspects, first, we were able to crystallize a large number of proteins using the 3 main methodologies (microbatch, vapour diffusion, liquid Diffusion) with the same card format and secondly, we were able to expose directly the card to the beam (FIP30A / ESRF-Grenoble - Dr. Jean-Luc Ferrer) to discriminate salt vs protein and index the latter.

The SpinXlab is an integrated platform for screening and refinement for small or medium sized laboratories and has the following benefits :

The preparation of the different conditions is done automatically by the instrument and the user enters only the stock solutions, this reduce drastically the hands-on time and allows to be more precise and run more conditions compared to manual refinement.

The volumes used in the card are between 100 and 300 nl, thus reducing the consumption of scarce proteins.

An integrated CCD camera is able to take images of all the chambers as shown here. Because there is no drop, the quality of the picture is far superior than classical systems.

The cards can be exposed to the beam, using beamlines equipped with robotic arms able to handle SBS plate format, thus, you do not need to mount your crystals or cryo-preserve them.

The time at the beam is also shorten because of the ability to navigate from one crystal chamber to the next without having to unload the sample.

Once the quality of the diffraction obtained through the card is sufficiently good, the card can be opened to collect the crystal for a full exposure.