Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, USA.
Compr Physiol. 2011 Oct;1(4):2175-87. doi: 10.1002/cphy.c110022.
Membrane proteins represent a challenging class of biological systems to study. They are extremely difficult to crystallize and in most cases they retain their structure and functions only in membrane environments. Therefore, commonly used diffraction methods fail to give detailed molecular structure and other approaches have to be utilized to obtain biologically relevant information. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, however, can provide powerful structural and dynamical constraints on these complicated systems. Solution- and solid-state NMR are powerful methods for investigating membrane proteins studies. In this work, we briefly review both solution and solid-state NMR techniques for membrane protein studies and illustrate the applications of these methods to elucidate proteins structure, conformation, topology, dynamics, and function. Recent advances in electronics, biological sample preparation, and spectral processing provided opportunities for complex biological systems, such as membrane proteins inside lipid vesicles, to be studied faster and with outstanding quality. New analysis methods therefore have emerged, that benefit from the combination of sample preparation and corresponding specific high-end NMR techniques, which give access to more structural and dynamic information.
膜蛋白是一类具有挑战性的生物系统，难以进行研究。它们极难结晶，在大多数情况下，只有在膜环境中才能保持其结构和功能。因此，常用的衍射方法无法提供详细的分子结构，需要采用其他方法来获取具有生物学意义的信息。然而，核磁共振（NMR）光谱技术可以为这些复杂系统提供强大的结构和动力学约束。溶液和固态 NMR 是研究膜蛋白的强大方法。在这项工作中，我们简要回顾了用于膜蛋白研究的溶液和固态 NMR 技术，并说明了这些方法在阐明蛋白质结构、构象、拓扑、动力学和功能方面的应用。电子学、生物样品制备和光谱处理方面的最新进展为膜蛋白等复杂生物系统提供了机会，使它们能够更快、更高质量地进行研究。因此，出现了新的分析方法，它们受益于样品制备和相应特定的高端 NMR 技术的结合，从而可以获得更多的结构和动态信息。
