Abstract
Secretory proteins are transported across the bacterial envelope using a membrane protein complex called the SecY channel or translocon. Major advances in understanding this transporter have been accomplished with methods including purification, crystallization, and reconstitution of the translocation reaction in vitro. We here describe the incorporation of the SecY complex into supported nanometer scale lipid bilayers called Nanodiscs. These nanoparticles mimic a membrane environment and circumvent many of the technical problems typically observed with liposomes and detergent micelles. The technology is simple, yet should lead to additional new progresses in the field of membrane protein transport.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank Dr. Stephen Sligar for providing samples of membrane scaffold protein. KD was supported by the Pacific Century Graduate Scholarship from the BC provincial government. The laboratory is funded by the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR).
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Dalal, K., Duong, F. (2010). Reconstitution of the SecY Translocon in Nanodiscs. In: Economou, A. (eds) Protein Secretion. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 619. Humana Press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-412-8_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60327-412-8_9
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