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Method to Visualize and Analyze Membrane Interacting Proteins by Transmission Electron Microscopy
Published on: March 5, 2017
Covalently circularized nanodiscs for studying membrane proteins and viral entry
Mahmoud L Nasr1, Diego Baptista1, Mike Strauss1
1Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
Abstract:
We engineered covalently circularized nanodiscs (cNDs) which, compared with standard nanodiscs, exhibit enhanced stability, defined diameter sizes and tunable shapes. Reconstitution into cNDs enhanced the quality of nuclear magnetic resonance spectra for both VDAC-1, a β-barrel membrane protein, and the G-protein-coupled receptor NTR1, an α-helical membrane protein. In addition, we used cNDs to visualize how simple, nonenveloped viruses translocate their genomes across membranes to initiate infection.
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