Abstract
The first crystal structures of recombinant mammalian membrane proteins were solved using high-quality protein that had been produced in yeast cells. One of these, the rat Kv1.2 voltage-gated potassium channel, was synthesized in Pichia pastoris. Since then, this yeast species has remained a consistently popular choice of host for synthesizing eukaryotic membrane proteins because it is quick, easy, and cheap to culture and is capable of posttranslational modification. Very recent structures of recombinant membrane proteins produced in P. pastoris include a series of X-ray crystallography structures of the human vitamin K epoxide reductase and a cryo-electron microscopy structure of the TMEM206 proton-activated chloride channel from pufferfish. P. pastoris has also been used to structurally and functionally characterize a range of membrane proteins including tetraspanins, aquaporins, and G protein-coupled receptors. This chapter provides an overview of the methodological approaches underpinning these successes.
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Abbreviations
- BMGY:
-
Buffered glycerol-complex medium
- BMMY:
-
Buffered methanol-complex medium
- BSM:
-
Basal salts medium
- DO:
-
Dissolved oxygen
- HPLC:
-
High-performance liquid chromatography
- v/v:
-
Volume by volume
- w/v:
-
Weight by volume
- YPD:
-
Yeast extract peptone dextrose medium
- YPG:
-
Yeast extract peptone glycerol medium
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Acknowledgments
We acknowledge funding from the ERACoBioTech MeMBrane project and BBSRC (BB/R02152X/1) to A.D.G., A.J.R., and R.M.B.
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Ayub, H. et al. (2022). Membrane Protein Production in the Yeast P. pastoris. In: Mus-Veteau, I. (eds) Heterologous Expression of Membrane Proteins. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2507. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2368-8_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2368-8_10
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