Issue 26, 2023

pH-tunable membrane-active polymers, NCMNP2a-x, and their potential membrane protein applications

Abstract

Accurate 3D structures of membrane proteins are essential for comprehending their mechanisms of action and designing specific ligands to modulate their activities. However, these structures are still uncommon due to the involvement of detergents in the sample preparation. Recently, membrane-active polymers have emerged as an alternative to detergents, but their incompatibility with low pH and divalent cations has hindered their efficacy. Herein, we describe the design, synthesis, characterization, and application of a new class of pH-tunable membrane-active polymers, NCMNP2a-x. The results demonstrated that NCMNP2a-x could be used for high-resolution single-particle cryo-EM structural analysis of AcrB in various pH conditions and can effectively solubilize BcTSPO with the function preserved. Molecular dynamic simulation is consistent with experimental data that shed great insights into the working mechanism of this class of polymers. These results demonstrated that NCMNP2a-x might have broad applications in membrane protein research.

Graphical abstract: pH-tunable membrane-active polymers, NCMNP2a-x, and their potential membrane protein applications

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
11 Apr 2023
Accepted
30 May 2023
First published
09 Jun 2023
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2023,14, 7310-7326

pH-tunable membrane-active polymers, NCMNP2a-x, and their potential membrane protein applications

T. K. H. Trinh, A. J. Cabezas, S. Joshi, C. Catalano, A. B. Siddique, W. Qiu, S. Deshmukh, A. des Georges and Y. Guo, Chem. Sci., 2023, 14, 7310 DOI: 10.1039/D3SC01890C

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