Current Status of Space Protein Crystallization and Its Future

Abstract

Protein crystallization is one of the dominant experimental fields in the space utilization. A lot of space experiments have been developed since 1983. It is used to be said that at least 20％of those experiments show the positive eｆfects of microgravity on protein crystallization. Although there are many prospects for the space crystallization technology, there may be some negative reputation of current experimental status. Here I discuss about the potential of crystallization in　space based on the recent investigations. If the protein crystallization experiment in space is improved not only technically but also systemically, it will provide good opportunities to perform the crystallization of various kinds of proteins and will certainly become complementary technology of the ground based high-throughput protein structure analysis.