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Overview of Membrane Protein Purification and Crystallization

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Advanced Methods in Structural Biology

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Abstract

The three-dimensional structures of proteins provide important information for elucidation of the mechanisms and functions of the proteins. However, membrane proteins are difficult to crystallize and available structural information on membrane proteins is very limited. The difficulty is mainly due to the hydrophobic nature and the instability of membrane proteins, which increase some parameters in their purification and crystallization procedures. Recently, some new techniques such as the antibody technique and the lipidic cubic phase crystallization technique were applied to the production of high-quality crystals of membrane proteins. In this chapter, the protocols for the purification of the membrane protein and the lipidic cubic phase crystallization technique are described.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported partly by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers 26102725 and 15H04338.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

    Tatsuro Shimamura

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  1. Tatsuro Shimamura
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Correspondence to Tatsuro Shimamura .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Materials Structure Science, High Energy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK) , Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

    Toshiya Senda

  2. Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan

    Katsumi Maenaka

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Shimamura, T. (2016). Overview of Membrane Protein Purification and Crystallization. In: Senda, T., Maenaka, K. (eds) Advanced Methods in Structural Biology. Springer Protocols Handbooks. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56030-2_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-56030-2_6

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