An Effective Deuterium Exchange Method for Neutron Crystal Structure Analysis with Unfolding-Refolding Processes
Kita, A., Morimoto, Y.(2016) Mol Biotechnol 58: 130-136
- PubMed: 26718545 
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12033-015-9908-8
- Primary Citation of Related Structures:  
5B05, 5B06, 5B07 - PubMed Abstract: 
A method of hydrogen/deuterium (H/D) exchange with an unfolding-refolding process has been applied to hen egg-white lysozyme (HWL), and accurate evaluation of its deuteration was carried out by time-of-flight mass spectroscopy. Neutron crystallography requires a suitable crystal with enough deuterium exchanged in the protein to decrease incoherent scattering from hydrogens. It is very expensive to prepare a fully deuterated protein, and therefore a simple H/D exchange technique is desirable for this purpose. Acid or base addition to protein solutions with heating effectively increased the number of deuterium up to more than 20 % of that of all hydrogen atoms, and refolded structures were determined by X-ray structure analysis at 1.8 Å resolution. Refolded HWL had increased deuterium content in its protein core and its native structure, determined at atomic resolution, was fully preserved.
Organizational Affiliation: 
Division of the Quantum Beam Material Science, Research Reactor Institute, Kyoto University, Kumatori, Osaka, 590-0494, Japan. kita@rri.kyoto-u.ac.jp.