Membrane Protein Crystallization From Cubic Lipid Matrices

And then... Membrane protein crystallization in cuboIn late 1996, a Swiss group led by E. M. Landaudropped a bombshell on the world of membraneprotein crystallography. They had succeeded incrystallizing a bacterial light harvesting proteinout of a lipid cubic liquid crystalline matrix.bR crystals, (3)The principle is quite simple: if you want to make a membrane proteinstable, why not put it in a membrane? But the task of crystallization ismore difficult than that. Purity of the protein in the crystal isparamount, and in any case, one must deliver the protein to theartificial membrane somehow. Once the protein is in the membrane, itthen must come out and crystallize. These are not trivial matters.What interests our group is that, though the Landau group hassucceeded in extending their technique to a handful of other proteins ina mere few years, no one yet knows how the technique actuallyworks. One idea, pictured at left, depends directly on the chemicalprecipitants Landau’s group used.A hypothetical sketch of protein crystals forming from a lipidic cubic phase, (1)