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Review
. 2019 Oct:58:278-285.
doi: 10.1016/j.sbi.2019.06.002. Epub 2019 Jul 5.

Chemical tools for membrane protein structural biology

Qinghai Zhang  1 , Vadim Cherezov  2
Affiliations
Review

Chemical tools for membrane protein structural biology

Qinghai Zhang et al. Curr Opin Struct Biol. 2019 Oct.

Abstract

Solving high-resolution structures of membrane proteins has been an important challenge for decades, still lagging far behind that of soluble proteins even with the recent remarkable technological advances in X-ray crystallography and electron microscopy. Central to this challenge is the necessity to isolate and solubilize membrane proteins in a stable, natively folded and functional state, a process influenced by not only the proteins but also their surrounding chemical environment. This review highlights recent community efforts in the development and characterization of novel membrane agents and ligand tools to stabilize individual proteins and protein complexes, which together have accelerated progress in membrane protein structural biology.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Chemical tools for MP stabilization outside of their native membrane environment.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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