Shape-Control of Protein Crystals in Patterned Microwells

This Communication demonstrates how selectively functionalized, patterned microscale wells can be used as small-volume (fL) crystallization vessels to grow protein crystals. This surface-patterned approach enables proteins to be crystallized with well-controlled shapes and uniform sizes from 3 μm down to 600 nm. Three different proteinslysozyme, thaumatin, and glucose isomerasewere crystallized as model systems to demonstrate the generality of this technique. Different polymorphs were formed simply by controlling the evaporation conditions.