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Updated: Jan 26, 2026

Cryo-EM and Single-Particle Analysis with Scipion
Published on: May 29, 2021
Single-particle cryo-EM studies of transmembrane proteins in SMA copolymer nanodiscs
1Department of Biochemistry, University of Illinois, 600 S. Mathews Street, Urbana, IL 61801, United States.
Abstract:
Styrene-maleic acid (SMA) copolymers can extract membrane proteins from native membranes along with lipids as nanodiscs. Preparation with SMA is fast, cost-effective, and captures the native protein-lipid interactions. On the other hand, cryo-EM has become increasingly successful and efficient for structural determinations of membrane proteins, with biochemical sample preparation often the bottleneck. Three recent cryo-EM studies on the efflux transporter AcrB and the alternative complex III: cyt c oxidase supercomplex have demonstrated the potential of SMA nanodisc samples to yield high-resolution structure information of membrane proteins.
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