HIGH-RESOLUTION STRUCTURE OF MEMBRANE PROTEIN CAPTURES ITS LIPID ENVIRONMENT

摘要

Relatively little is known about how membrane proteins interact with the lipids that surround them because structural,studies typically fail to capture these proteins' lipid environment.Now,a high-resolution structure of a membrane-embedded water channel protein has opened a window to how lipids pack around membrane proteins.Thomas Walz of Harvard MedicaJ School and coworkers captured the 1.9-A structure of aquaporin-0(AQPO)immersed in an artificial lipid bilayer.