Solvent content of protein crystals

An analysis of the solvent content of 116 different crystal forms of globular proteins found that in many cases this range will be sufficiently restrictive to enable the probable number of molecules in the crystallographic asymmetric unit to be determined directly from the molecular weight of the protein and the space group and unit cell dimensions of the crystal.

Abstract

Abstract An analysis has been made, from the data which are currently available, of the solvent content of 116 different crystal forms of globular proteins. The fraction of the crystal volume occupied by solvent is most commonly near 43 %, but has been observed to have values from about 27 to 65%. In many cases this range will be sufficiently restrictive to enable the probable number of molecules in the crystallographic asymmetric unit to be determined directly from the molecular weight of the protein and the space group and unit cell dimensions of the crystal.