Application
Preparation of seed stocks from protein crystals for microseeding applications. A highly polished glass bead and a microcentrifuge tube are used as mortar and pestle for crushing of seed crystals.

Format
24 glass beads, each in a 1.5 ml microcentrifuge tube.

Features
Each glass bead is hardened and hilghly polished. The shape of the bottom of the microcentrifuge tube matches the shape of the bead to ensure effective crystal crushing.

Usage
JBS Beads-for-Seeds can be utilized to prepare seed stocks from protein crystals. Crystals and stabilizing solution are added to the highly polished glass bead in the microcentrifuge tube and the seed stock is generated simply by vortexing.
Adding a seeding solution to a crystallization experiment allows growing crystals in the metastable zone of the phase diagram. Further, the number and size of the crystals can be influenced by serial dilution of the seed stock [1].

References
[1] Luft et al. (1999) A method to produce microseed stock for use in the crystallization of biological macromolecules. Acta Cryst. D55:988.