Serendipitous high-resolution structure of Escherichia coli carbonic anhydrase 2.

X-ray crystallography remains the dominant method of determining the three-dimensional structure of proteins. Nevertheless, this resource-intensive process may be hindered by the unintended crystallization of contaminant proteins from the expression source. Here, the serendipitous discovery of two novel crystal forms and one new, high-resolution structure of carbonic anhydrase 2 (CA2) from Escherichia coli that arose during a crystallization campaign for an unrelated target is reported. By comparing unit-cell parameters with those in the PDB, contaminants such as CA2 can be identified, preventing futile molecular-replacement attempts. Crystallographers can use these new lattice parameters to diagnose CA2 contamination in similar experiments.