A Strategic Approach for Fluorescence Imaging of Membrane Proteins in a Native-like Environment

Biological membranes are complex barriers in which membrane proteins and thousands of lipidic species participate in structural and functional interactions. Developing a strategic approach that allows uniform labeling of membrane proteins while maintaining a lipidic environment that retains functional interactions is highly desirable for in vitro fluorescence studies. Herein, we focus on complementing current methods by integrating the powerful processes of unnatural amino acid mutagenesis, bioorthogonal labeling, and the detergent-free membrane protein solubilization based on the amphiphilic styrene-maleic acid (SMA) polymer. Importantly, the SMA polymer preserves a thermodynamically stable shell of phospholipids. The approach that we present is both rapid and generalizable providing a population of uniquely labeled membrane proteins in lipid nanoparticles for quantitative fluorescence-based studies.