Lipidic Cubic Phase-Induced Membrane Protein Crystallization: Interplay between Lipid Molecular Structure, Mesophase Structure and Properties, and Crystallogenesis

Abstract

Obtaining well-diffracting crystals of membrane proteins, which is crucial to the molecular-level understanding of their intrinsic three-dimensional structure, dynamics, and function, represents a fundamental bottleneck in the field of structural biology. One of the major advances in the field of membrane protein structural determination was the realization that the nanostructured lipidic cubic phase (LCP) environment constitutes a membrane mimetic matrix that promotes solubilization, stabilization, and crystallization of specific membrane proteins. Despite two decades passing since the introduction of LCP-based membrane protein crystallization, the research community's understanding of the ..