Abstract
The recent development of the field of molecular biology is amazing, and many biological functions are being elucidated. Most of the biological phenomena are induced by the reactions between biological macromolecules, so it is very important to determine the structure of these molecules precisely at atomic resolution. Protein X-ray crystallography is one of the most powerful techniques to determine the protein structure at atomic resolution. As of May 2012, more than 71000 structures of the biological macromolecules are determined by X-ray crystallography, but the resolution of most of the structures is not enough. It is impossible to reveal high-resolution structures without high quality crystals. Crystallization in microgravity environment is one of the most powerful methods to improve quality of the crystals. We are working on the improvement of protein crystals based on the crystallization under microgravity environment and development of methodolgy of high-resolution X-ray crystallography. The results of our project on high-quality crystallization of the small protein to large viruses and technical developments on data processing are presented in this review.
