Crystallization of foot-and-mouth disease virus 3C protease: surface mutagenesis and a novel crystal-optimization strategy

Birtley et al. (2005) studied Foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV). Targeted mutagenesis and iterative screening vs. Wild-type protein was evaluated on Crystallization and high-resolution diffraction. Targeted mutagenesis of surface amino acids combined with iterative screening yielded a foot-and-mouth disease virus 3C protease construct amenable to crystallization with 1.9 A diffraction.