Phospholipid Bilayer Nanodiscs: A Powerful Tool to Study the Structural Organization and Biochemical Reactivity of Proteins in Membrane-like Environments

摘要

Nanodiscs are disc-like structures formed by two copies of a membrane scaffold protein, engineered from apolipoprotein A-I, surrounding a phospholipid mixture that can incorporate membrane proteins preserving their natural properties. They behave as soluble entities allowing the use of high-resolution structural techniques to determine the structural organization of the embedded membrane protein, and the use of solution biochemical-biophysical tools to measure its activity, assembly and interactions with other proteins in membrane-like environments. In addition, nanodiscs are biocompatible which makes them an attractive technology to be used in therapy, drug discovery, and other biotechnological applications.