Proteins are complex compounds that are essential for the growth and repair of tissue. While scientists understand much about the structure and stability of water-soluble proteins that ‘float’ around in humans, they know very little about the shape and stability of proteins that are embedded, or folded, into the lipid membrane of cells. Such membrane proteins make up about 30 percent of all proteins in the body.
Despite years of research, scientists were struggling to devise a method to keep membrane proteins stable enough for long-term structural and functional studies.
Now, scientists at the University of Virginia Health System have come up with a protocol to extract proteins from membranes by using chemicals that allow them to be reversibly folded and refolded. The proteins can then be studied using crystallography or nuclear magnetic resonance imaging. Their work is detailed in the March 23 issue of the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” (PNAS) and also on the cover of the journal. The paper can be found on the web at: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/101/12/4065.