[ccp4bb]: Mercury Phenyl Glyoxal

[David Briggs <d.briggs@mail.cryst.bbk.ac.uk>]

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Dear ccp4-ers

	We are currently investigating the possibilities of covalently
bonding heavy-atoms to specific residues types using modified reagents,
for use in structure determination through MIR,etc...

	We have a review citing the use of mercury phenyl glyoxal as a
arginine specific reagent, and have found the recipe for it on the web,
but our collaborators reckon that the reaction conditions for it are
nowhere near strong enough to force mercury onto a phenyl ring...

	They have used this recipe, and using NMR, have discovered that
all you get back at the end is the phenyl glyoxal that you started with...

	Other than Don Wiley's work (which did use Phenyl glyoxal,
but it did not bind to the Arg residues), has anybody...

	1) got a decent prep for Hg-phenyl glyoxal that they KNOW works
	2) actually solved a structure using Hg-phenyl glyoxal AND seen it
bound to arginines


	Thank you in advance for your help

		Dave

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				|
David Briggs			| Tel : 0207 631 6835
Bacterial Toxins Group		|
School of Crystallography	| Fax : 0207 631 6803
Birkbeck College		|
Malet St			| http://student.cryst.bbk.ac.uk/~ebrig02/
London				|
WC1E 7HX			| Office : EB9/B092
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