The field of membrane structural biology represents a fast-moving field with exciting developments including native nanodiscs that allow preparation of complexes of post-translationally modified proteins bound to biological lipids. This has led to conceptual advances including biological membrane:protein assemblies or “memteins” as the fundamental functional units of biological membranes. Tools including cryo-electron microscopy and X-ray crystallography are maturing such that it is becoming increasingly feasible to solve structures of large, multicomponent complexes, while complementary methods including nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy yield unique insights into interactions and dynamics. Challenges remain, including elucidating exactly how lipids and ligands are recognized at atomic resolution and transduce signals across asymmetric bilayers. In this special volume some of the latest thinking and methods are gathered through the analysis of a range of transmembrane targets. Ongoing work on areas including polymer design, protein labelling and microfluidic technologies will ensure continued progress on improving resolution and throughput, providing deeper understanding of this most important group of targets.

膜结构生物学领域代表了一个快速发展的领域，具有令人振奋的发展，其中包括天然纳米光盘，可以制备与生物脂质结合的翻译后修饰蛋白质的复合物。这导致了概念上的进步，包括生物膜：蛋白质组装或“膜蛋白”作为生物膜的基本功能单元。包括低温电子显微镜和X射线晶体学在内的工具正在日趋成熟，因此解决大型多组分复合物的结构变得越来越可行，而包括核磁共振波谱学在内的互补方法则可提供对相互作用和动力学的独特见解。挑战依然存在，包括准确阐明如何在原子分辨率下识别脂质和配体，以及如何在不对称双层中转导信号。在这本特别的书中，通过分析一系列跨膜靶标收集了一些最新的思想和方法。正在进行的包括聚合物设计，蛋白质标记和微流体技术在内的工作将确保在提高分辨率和通量方面继续取得进展，从而使人们对这一最重要的目标有更深入的了解。