Structure Determination of Membrane Proteins in Five Easy Pieces

Abstract

A general method for determining the structures of membrane proteins in phospholipid bilayers under physiological conditions is described. Membrane proteins are high priority targets for structure determination, and are challenging for the existing experimental methods. Because membrane proteins reside in a liquid crystalline phospholipid bilayer membranes it is important to study them in this type of environment. The approach we have developed can be summarized in five steps, and incorporates methods of molecular biology, biochemistry, sample preparation, construction and modification of NMR instrumentation, the development and execution of NMR experiments, and structure calculations. It relies on solid-state NMR spectroscopy to obtain high-resolution spectra and residue-specific structural restraints for membrane proteins which undergo rotational diffusion around the membrane normal, but whose mobility is otherwise restricted by interactions with the membrane phospholipids. The spectra of membrane proteins alone and in complex with other proteins and ligands set the stage for structure determination and functional studies.