Cell-free expression of G-protein coupled receptors: new pipelines for challenging targets

Based on their eminent importance for medical applications, G-protein coupled receptors are currently amongst the most frequently membrane protein targets analyzed by cell-free expression. The cell-free expression approach removes most bottlenecks known from conventional cell-based protein production pipelines and ensures fast access to a selected receptor target. In addition, receptors can be synthesized in presence of a large variety of artificial solubilization environments comprising detergents, lipids, nanodiscs and other amphiphilic compounds. The currently accumulated data based on a variety of analyzed receptors already opens promising perspectives for applications of cell-free synthesized samples in functional characterization and drug screening. Structural evaluation still suffers from high conformational dynamics causing sample instability and might be addressed in future by molecular engineering or immuno-stabilization approaches.