Production, crystallization and preliminary X-ray analysis of the human integrin I domain

Integrin α₁β₁ is one of the main collagen receptors in many cell types. A fast large-scale production, purification and crystallization method for the integrin α₁ I domain is reported here. The α₁ I domain was crystallized using the vapour-diffusion method with a reservoir solution containing a mixture of PEG 4000, sodium acetate, glycerol and Tris–HCl buffer. The crystals beong to the C2 space group, with unit-cell parameters a = 74.5, b = 81.9, c = 37.3 Å, α = γ = 90.0, β = 90.8°. The crystals diffract to 2.0 Å and a 94.2% complete data set to 2.2 Å has been collected from a single crystal with an R_merge of 5.8%.