In situ structural studies of Anabaena sensory rhodopsin in the E. coli membrane

Magic-angle spinning nuclear magnetic resonance is well suited for the study of membrane proteins in the nativelike lipid environment. However, the natural cellular membrane is invariably more complex than the proteoliposomes most often used for solid-state NMR (SSNMR) studies, and differences may affect the structure and dynamics of the proteins under examination. In this work we use SSNMR and other biochemical and biophysical methods to probe the structure of a seven-transmembrane helical photoreceptor, Anabaena sensory rhodopsin (ASR), prepared in the Escherichia coli inner membrane, and compare it to that in a bilayer formed by DMPC/DMPA lipids. We find that ASR is organized into trimers in both environments but forms two-dimensional crystal lattices of different symmetries. It favors hexagonal packing in liposomes, but may form a square lattice in the E. coli membrane. To examine possible changes in structure site-specifically, we perform two- and three-dimensional SSNMR experiments and analyze the differences in chemical shifts and peak intensities. Overall, this analysis reveals that the structure of ASR is largely conserved in the inner membrane of E. coli, with many of the important structural features of rhodopsins previously observed in ASR in proteoliposomes being preserved. Small, site-specific perturbations in protein structure that occur as a result of the membrane changes indicate that the protein can subtly adapt to its environment without large structural rearrangement.