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protein crystallization
Abstract
X-ray crystallography is currently the most successful method for determining the three-dimensional
structure of membrane proteins. Nevertheless, growing the crystals required for this technique presents
one of the major bottlenecks in this area of structural biology. This is especially true for the a-helical
type membrane proteins that are of particular interest due to their medical relevance. To address this
problem we have undertaken a detailed analysis of the crystallization conditions from 121 a-helical
membrane protein structures deposited in the Protein Data Bank. This information has been analyzed so
that the success of different parameters can be easily compared for different membrane protein families.
Concurrent with this analysis, we also present the new sparse matrix crystallization screen MemGold.
Keywords: membrane proteins; protein crystallization
Supplemental material: see www.proteinscience.org
Recent successes over the last few years have significantly mation based on detergent solubilized a-helical membrane
increased the numbers of high-resolution membrane protein proteins that were crystallized using the vapor diffusion
structures using X-ray crystallography (see http://blanco. technique, the most commonly used method for initial
biomol.uci.edu/Membrane_Proteins_xtal.html). A sufficient crystal screening (Jancarik and Kim 1991; Kimber et al.
amount of data is now available on successful a-helical 2003; Page and Stevens 2004). The conditions were ana-
membrane protein crystallization to allow the rational de- lyzed to establish the current trends in the different crys-
sign of a more specific crystallization screen. With this aim tallization parameters and from this a new sparse-matrix
in mind, we constructed a database of crystallization infor- screen was designed. We anticipate that this will greatly
facilitate the preliminary crystallization of a range of impor-
tant a-helical membrane proteins.
466 Protein Science (2008), 17:466472. Published by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press. Copyright 2008 The Protein Society
a-Helical membrane protein crystallization
and the channels, accounting for 29 entries each, followed Types of precipitants
by 27 entries for transporters. Of the remaining families,
14 entries are photosynthetic and light harvesting com- Figure 3A illustrates the success of the different types of
plexes, five entries are for the ATPases and GPCRs, and precipitant within the eight MP families. Of the 121
four for the different bacterial rhodopsins. The remaining conditions in the database, 108 were obtained using PEG
eight MPs are not easily ascribed to these seven families or another type of polymer as the primary precipitant. Of
and were grouped into a separate category termed others the remainder, 15 were obtained using salt and two using
(see Supplemental material). At the time this database was an organic molecule. At first glance, the results appear
compiled, the only available examples for the GPCR family quite similar to those obtained for soluble proteins, in
consisted of five entries for bovine rhodopsin. For this rea- which PEGs are the most successful crystallization re-
son, the recent structure of the human b2 adrenergic G agents (Kimber et al. 2003; Page and Stevens 2004). On
protein-coupled receptor was not included in the database closer inspection, however, it is clear that small MW
(Rasmussen et al. 2007). PEGs, in particular PEG 400 (Supplemental Fig. S2),
www.proteinscience.org 467
Newstead et al.
www.proteinscience.org 469
Newstead et al.
(continued)
Table 1. Continued
Salt Buffer pH Precipitant
www.proteinscience.org 471
Newstead et al.
Acknowledgments the tetrameric structure of the KcsA K+ channel. J. Gen. Physiol. 126:
271283.
We thank Bernadette Byrne, Liz Carpenter, and David Drew Michel, H. 1982. Three-dimensional crystals of a membrane protein complex.
The photosynthetic reaction centre from Rhodopseudomonas viridis.
(Imperial College London, UK) for discussions concerning this J. Mol. Biol. 158: 567572.
work. This project was supported by the Biotechnology and Newman, J. 2004. Novel buffer systems for macromolecular crystallization.
Biological Sciences Research Council, the Membrane Protein Acta Crystallogr. D Biol. Crystallogr. 60: 610612.
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PF6 E-MEP European Membrane Protein Consortium (www. throughput fluorescent-based optimization of eukaryotic membrane protein
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