Expression of interest

摘要

Membrane proteins are fickle. They play essential roles in cellular processes, govern communication between the cell and its surroundings and orchestrate the flux of materials across the cell membrane. They're also the target of about half the drugs on the market. Yet because they are notoriously more difficult to work with than soluble proteins, researchers know little about their structures. The human genome encodes an estimated 10,000 membrane proteins, but less than 1% have had their three-dimensional structures determined. Encouraged by the reams of data produced by recent sequencing efforts, protein scientists now hope that membrane protein structure determination will soon become automated and accelerated. Increases in funding and new technologies may provide enough impetus to launch membrane protein chemistry into lush new territory. Scientists with skills in protein bioinformatics or expression of soluble membrane proteins, and those who can use technology to solve these structures, will be in demand as labs around the world aim to add membrane proteins to international databases over the next five years. But to do so, they must first identify target proteins and expression vectors able to churn out milligram amounts of easily purified protein. And they'll need to develop solutions that will let techniques such as X-ray crystallography reveal the protein's three-dimensional structure. Then they'll need to use these imaging technologies to take pictures of the proteins, and convert them into three-dimensional images — a slow and expensive process.