Most of the 231 unique membrane protein structures (as of 3/2010) are of bacterial membrane proteins (MPs) expressed in bacteria, or eukaryotic MPs from natural sources. However eukaryotic membrane proteins, especially those with more than three membrane crossings rarely succumb to any suitable expression in bacterial cells. They typically require expression in eukaryotic cells that can provide...

Integral membrane proteins (IMPs) are crucial biological components, mediating the transfer of material and information between cells and their environment. Many IMPs have proven to be difficult to isolate and study. High-resolution structural information on this class of proteins is limited, largely because of difficulties in generating soluble forms of such proteins that retain native folding...

To Sanni 5 CONTENTS ABBREVIATIONS 8 LIST OF ORIGINAL PUBLICATIONS 10 SUMMARY 11 1. REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 13 1.1. Biological membranes 13 Structure and composition 13 Dynamics and organization 13 1.2. Lipid dynamics 15 Intra-and intermolecular dynamics 15 Lateral pressure profile 16 Lipid bilayer as a permeability barrier 17 1.3. Membrane hydration 18 1.4. Membrane lateral heterogeneity 19 1....

There is probably no major biochemical process in plants that is both so important and so poorly understood at the molecular level as cellulose synthesis. This is surprising, because the basic synthetic event is a simple polymerization of glucose residues from a substrate such as UDP-glucose to form the homopolymer p-l,4-~-glucan (for reviews on the structure and industrial uses of cellulose, s...

Given the key roles of integral membrane proteins as transporters and channels, it is necessary to understand their structures and, hence, mechanisms and regulation at the molecular level. Membrane proteins represent approximately 30% of all proteins of currently sequenced genomes. Paradoxically, however, only approximately 2% of crystal structures deposited in the protein data bank are of memb...

The difficulty in crystallizing channel proteins in three dimensions limits the use of X-ray crystallography in solving their structures. In contrast, the amphiphilic character of integral membrane proteins promotes their integration into artificial lipid bilayers. Protein-protein interactions may lead to ordering of the proteins within the lipid bilayer into two-dimensional crystals that are a...

Although membrane proteins make up 30% of the proteome and are a common target for therapeutic drugs, determination of their atomic structure remains a technical challenge. Electron crystallography represents an alternative to the conventional methods of X-ray diffraction and NMR and relies on the formation of two-dimensional crystals. These crystals are produced by reconstituting purified, det...

Mass transfer during membrane formation by means of phase inversion for a polymeric system with both a solid-liquid and a liquid-liquid equilibrium was studied on the basis of the theory developed by Reuvers and Smolders. During the first moments of immersion in the coagulation bath, the concentrations at the interface between bath and film are governed by the virtual liquid-liquid equilibrium....

The Ca2+-ATPase SERCA1a (sarcoplasmic-endoplasmic reticulum Ca2+-ATPase isoform 1a) from rabbit has been overexpressed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This membrane protein was purified by avidin agarose affinity chromatography based on natural biotinylation in the expression host, followed by HPLC gel filtration. Both the functional and structural properties of the overexpressed protein validate ...

Coassembled molecular structures are known to exhibit a large variety of geometries and morphologies. A grand challenge of self-assembly design is to find techniques to control the crystal symmetries and overall morphologies of multicomponent systems. By mixing +3 and -1 ionic amphiphiles, we assemble crystalline ionic bilayers in a large variety of geometries that resemble polyhedral cellular ...