The copper(II)‐binding tripeptide GHK, a valuable crystallization and phasing tag for macromolecular crystallography

The growth of diffraction‐quality crystals and experimental phasing remain two of the main bottlenecks in protein crystallography. Here, the high‐affinity copper(II)‐binding tripeptide GHK was fused to the N‐terminus of a GFP variant and an MBP‐FG peptide fusion. The GHK tag promoted crystallization, with various residues (His, Asp, His/Pro) from symmetry molecules completing the copper(II) square‐pyramidal coordination sphere. Rapid structure determination by copper SAD phasing could be achieved, even at a very low Bijvoet ratio or after significant radiation damage. When collecting highly redundant data at a wavelength close to the copper absorption edge, residual S‐atom positions could also be located in log‐likelihood‐gradient maps and used to improve the phases. The GHK copper SAD method provides a convenient way of both crystallizing and phasing macromolecular structures, and will complement the current trend towards native sulfur SAD and MR‐SAD phasing.

A novel three‐residue tag containing the residues GHK that can be used to promote crystallization and in SAD phasing experiments using its tightly bound copper ion is described. image