State Key Laboratory of Membrane Biology, College of Future Technology, Institute of Molecular Medicine, Peking University, Beijing Key Laboratory of Cardiometabolic Molecular Medicine, Beijing 100871, China.
Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.
Biochemistry. 2023 Jan 17;62(2):196-200. doi: 10.1021/acs.biochem.2c00319. Epub 2022 Aug 1.
Despite the resolution revolution of cryo-EM, structures of small membrane proteins (<80 kDa) are still understudied. These proteins are notoriously reluctant to structure determination by single-particle cryo-EM. Protein fusion might represent a plausible strategy to overcome such difficulties. This Perspective enumerates recent exemplary progress and discusses the future potential of the protein fusion strategy.
尽管 cryo-EM 分辨率革命取得了突破,但<80 kDa 的小膜蛋白结构仍然研究不足。这些蛋白通过单颗粒 cryo-EM 进行结构测定非常困难。蛋白融合可能是克服这些困难的一种可行策略。本文列举了最近的一些典范进展,并讨论了蛋白融合策略的未来潜力。