Development of crystallization methods for integral membrane proteins

Development of crystallization methods for integral membrane proteins

Our research is focused on one of the major barriers in Structural biology: growing high quality three dimensional (3D) crystals of integral membrane proteins for structural analysis. Obtaining such a goal requires the design of crystallization methods that complement and improve upon existing approaches. Our hypothesis relies on the assumption that promoting crystal growth of detergent solubilized membrane proteins (i.e. membrane proteins surrounded by detergent micelles) will benefit greatly once a simple, specific and controllable mechanism capable of conjugating micelles that surround the membrane protein will be introduced into the system. In such a scenario, membrane proteins could be brought into proximity and interact without the surrounding micelle affecting protein structure. Clearly, such a micellar conjugating mechanism has the potential to stabilize nucleation centers which in turn should promote crystal growth. To learn more about our novel concept for crystallization of integral membrane proteins use the following link: http://www.ariel.ac.il/sites/guy-patchornik and our recent publications on the topic:

Truong et al., Promoting Crystallization of Intrinsic Membrane Proteins with Conjugated Micelles. Scientific Reports (2020) 10, 12199. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32699228/

Troung et al., Conjugation of native membranes via linear oligo-amines. J. Colloids and Surfaces B: Biointerfaces (2020) 193, 111101. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32434136/

Truong et al., Controlled micelle conjugation via charged peptide amphiphiles. J. Peptide Sci. (2019) e3174. doi: 10.1002/psc.3174. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31140721/

Hosamani et al., Membrane protein crystallization in micelles conjugated by nucleoside base-pairing: A different concept. (2016) J. Struct. Biol. 195, 379-386. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27368128/

Patchornik et al., Cryo-TEM structural analysis of conjugated nonionic-engineered micelles. Soft matter (2014) 10, 4922-4928.  https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24874009/

Patchornik et al., Engineered-membranes: A Novel Concept for Clustering of Native Lipid Bilayers. J. Colloids and Interface Sci. (2012) 388, 300-305. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22999464/

Dr. Guy Patchornik Ph.D.

Dept. of Chemical Sciences, Ariel, Israel.

Email: [Email Address Removed]