Definition
Membrane proteins are proteins with at least one domain that is physically embedded into a biological membrane. Protein structure is defined as the three-dimensional configuration of the protein amino acid sequence.
Introduction
The term “membrane protein” is widely used to describe proteins that are inserted in, anchored to, or otherwise associated with a biological membrane. From a structural point of view, however, only membrane-inserted domains present characteristics that are clearly different from those of their soluble counterparts. These structural features stem from evolutionary adaptation to the peculiar membrane environment. In contrast, overall structural architecture of membrane-associated or membrane-anchored domains presents features similar to those of soluble domains. This entry focuses on the structure of integral membrane proteins (IMPs), or proteins whose polypeptide chain...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Burri L, Vascotto K, Gentle IE, Chan NC, Beilharz T, Stapleton DI, Ramage L, Lithgow T. Integral membrane proteins in the mitochondrial outer membrane of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. FEBS J. 2006;273:1507–15.
Deisenhofer J, Epp O, Miki K, Huber R, Michel H. Structure of the protein subunits in the photosynthetic reaction centre of Rhodopseudomonas viridis at 3 Å resolution. Nature. 1985;318:618–24.
Dong C, Beis K, Nesper J, Brunkan-Lamontagne AL, Clarke BR, Whitfield C, Naismith JH. Wza the translocon for E. coli capsular polysaccharides defines a new class of membrane protein. Nature. 2006;444:226–9.
Doyle DA, Morais Cabral J, Pfuetzner RA, Kuo A, Gulbis JM, Cohen SL, Chait BT, MacKinnon R. The structure of the potassium channel: molecular basis of K+ conduction and selectivity. Science. 1998;280:69–77.
Fagerberg L, Jonasson K, von Heijne G, Uhlen M, Berglund L. Prediction of the human membrane proteome. Proteomics. 2010;10:1141–9.
Fairman JW, Noinaj N, Buchanan SK. The structural biology of beta-barrel membrane proteins: a summary of recent reports. Curr Opin Struct Biol. 2011;21:523–31.
Granseth E, von Heijne G, Elofsson A. A study of the membrane-water interface region of membrane proteins. J Mol Biol. 2005;346:377–85.
Humphrey W, Dalke A, Schulten K. VMD: visual molecular dynamics. J Mol Graph. 1996;14(33–38):27–38.
Imai K, Fujita N, Gromiha MM, Horton P. Eukaryote-wide sequence analysis of mitochondrial beta-barrel outer membrane proteins. BMC Genomics. 2011;12:79.
Jacoby E, Bouhelal R, Gerspacher M, Seuwen K. The 7 TM G-protein-coupled receptor target family. ChemMedChem. 2006;1:761–82.
Langelaan DN, Wieczorek M, Blouin C, Rainey JK. Improved helix and kink characterization in membrane proteins allows evaluation of kink sequence predictors. J Chem Inf Model. 2010;50:2213–20.
Liu J, Rost B. Comparing function and structure between entire proteomes. Protein Sci. 2001;10:1970–9.
Lomize MA, Lomize AL, Pogozheva ID, Mosberg HI. OPM: orientations of proteins in membranes database. Bioinformatics. 2006;22:623–5.
Pettersen EF, Goddard TD, Huang CC, Couch GS, Greenblatt DM, Meng EC, Ferrin TE. UCSF Chimera–a visualization system for exploratory research and analysis. J Comput Chem. 2004;25:1605–12.
Rapp M, Granseth E, Seppala S, von Heijne G. Identification and evolution of dual-topology membrane proteins. Nat Struct Mol Biol. 2006;13:112–6.
Schrödinger LLC. The PyMOL Molecular Graphics System, Version 1.3. 2011.
van Meer G, Voelker DR, Feigenson GW. Membrane lipids: where they are and how they behave. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2008;9:112–24.
Viklund H, Granseth E, Elofsson A. Structural classification and prediction of reentrant regions in alpha-helical transmembrane proteins: application to complete genomes. J Mol Biol. 2006;361:591–603.
von Heijne G. Membrane-protein topology. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2006;7:909–18.
von Heijne G, Gavel Y. Topogenic signals in integral membrane proteins. Eur J Biochem/FEBS. 1988;174:671–8.
Wimley WC. The versatile beta-barrel membrane protein. Curr Opin Struct Biol. 2003;13:404–11.
Zimmer J, Nam Y, Rapoport TA. Structure of a complex of the ATPase SecA and the protein-translocation channel. Nature. 2008;455:936–43.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 European Biophysical Societies' Association (EBSA)
About this entry
Cite this entry
Punta, M., Kloppmann, E. (2013). Membrane Protein Structure. In: Roberts, G.C.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Biophysics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16712-6_422
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-16712-6_422
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-16711-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-16712-6
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesReference Module Biomedical and Life Sciences