Introduction

This information was originally compiled in a printed manual in May 2003 to provide a compendium of up-to-date commonly used methods routinely used in the X-ray crystallography laboratory in the Molecular Structure Section of the Laboratory of Molecular Biology, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. Much of the information contained in this manual was gleaned from my knowledgeable, kind, and very clever colleagues in the Laboratory of Dr. David Davies. Special thanks go to Drs. Thang Chiu and Jessica Bell, my very patient tutors. I am forever in debt to their mentorship.

A second printed edition was completed in May 2005 and incorporated additional material related to the conduct of protein X-ray crystallography as carried out in my undergraduate research laboratory at Colgate. I am indebted to my first “crystallography” research students, Ariel Herman (’04) and Joey Lee (’04) for their patience with the first edition. Their laboratory experience inspired improvements and updates to the second edition.

The third printed edition was completed in June 2006 and incorporated entirely new sections on using CCP4i, Refmac, Coot, and Phaser. With Coot, the CCP4 suite became more accessible and easy-to-use than ever for undergraduates. My colleague Gino Cingolani deserves credit for convincing me to try Coot and Refmac in the undergraduate research environment. Since 2007 this information has lived on-line for easy access.