Verification of bioinformatics structure predictions depends heavily on the protein data bank. The best protein structures are generally acquired through X-ray crystallography, but the main difficulty of this technique is crystallization. One approach to generating crystals is to start with a solution containing one half the original protein and one half the mirror image protein, a racemic mixture. The mirror image protein can be directly synthesized from D-amino acids, up to 50 amino acids long. These molecules can be combined together with a technique called chemical ligation to create larger proteins. Racemic crystals generally form centrosymmetricachiral crystals which is a constraint that aids in the computation of the structure. Achiral racemic crystals are also energetically favored to crystallize relative to chiral crystals. Racemic protein crystallography is an essential approach for proteins that do not form a normal crystal.
Author(s): Jack Merrin