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Updated: Aug 18, 2026

Sedimentation Equilibrium of a Small Oligomer-forming Membrane Protein: Effect of Histidine Protonation on Pentameric Stability
Published on: April 2, 2015
Changing single side-chains can greatly enhance the resistance of a membrane protein to irreversible inactivation
1Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Laboratory of Structural Biology and Molecular Medicine, UCLA, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA, 90095-1570, USA.
Abstract:
The thermal inactivation rates of a set of 20 cysteine-substituted variants of the integral membrane protein diacylglycerol kinase were measured. Two of the mutations, I53C and I70C, were found to significantly prolong the half-life of the enzyme in detergent solution. By combining the single mutants to create a double mutant, I53C/I70C, the half-life of the enzyme was improved from less than a minute at 70 degrees C to 51 minutes. These results demonstrate that individual side-chain substitutions can significantly improve the properties of membrane proteins in detergent solution.
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