Detection and characterization of merohedral twinning in crystals of oxalyl-coenzyme A decarboxylase from Oxalobacter formigenes

Oxalyl-coenzyme A decarboxylase is a thiamin diphosphate dependent enzyme active in the catabolism of the highly toxic compound oxalate. The enzyme from Oxalobacter formigenes has been expressed as a recombinant protein in Escherichia coli, purified to homogeneity and crystallized. Two crystal forms were obtained, one showing poor diffraction and the other merohedral twinning. Crystals in the former category belong to the tetragonal space group P42212. Data to 4.1 Å resolution were collected from these crystals and an incomplete low resolution structure was initially determined by molecular replacement. Crystals in the latter category were obtained by co-crystallizing the protein with coenzyme A, thiamin diphosphate and Mg2+-ions. Data to 1.73 Å were collected from one of these crystals with apparent point group 622. The crystal was found to be heavily twinned, and a twin ratio of 0.43 was estimated consistently by different established methods. The true space group P3121 was deduced, and a molecular replacement solution was obtained using the low resolution structure as template when searching in detwinned data.