Crystals of luciferase from Vibrio harveyi. A preliminary characterization.

Bacterial luciferase from Vibrio harveyi, the 77,000-dalton light-emitting enzyme of the marine bacterium, has been crystallized into a two million cubic Angstrom cell with P212121 symmetry. The cell constants are a = 59.6 +/- 0.4 A, b = 112 +/- 0.7 A, and c = 302 +/- 2 A. The reflections corresponding to the 302-A cell edge can be resolved by suitable collimation of the incident beam, without resorting to focusing mirrors. The crystals diffract to better than 3-A resolution and are large enough (0.7 mm) for data collection. The crystallization conditions are presented and general crystallization characteristics are discussed.