Native mass spectrometry goes more native: investigation of membrane protein complexes directly from SMALPs.

Other than more widely used methods, the use of styrene maleic acid allows the direct extraction of membrane proteins from the lipid bilayer into SMALPs keeping it in its native lipid surrounding. Here we present the combined use of SMALPs and LILBID-MS, allowing determination of oligomeric states of membrane proteins of different functionality directly from the native nanodiscs.