"CRYO-EM OF MEMBRANE PROTEINS: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED IN THE LAST DECADE AND WHAT ARE THE CURRENT CHALLENGES?" with Doreen Matthies, NIH/NICHD (In-person Seminar)

Title: CRYO-EM OF MEMBRANE PROTEINS: WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED IN THE LAST DECADE AND WHAT ARE THE CURRENT CHALLENGES?

Speaker: Doreen Matthies, NIH/NICHD

Hosted by: Sergei Sukharev

Abstract: In the last decade the field of Structural Biology has made great advances in using electron microscopy to solve structures of protein complexes including membrane proteins to high resolution. Best practices of how to use Single Particle Cryo-EM and more importantly how to optimize a membrane protein sample such as an ion channel or a transporter will be discussed. Most membrane protein structures are currently resolved in a detergent micelle, but cryo-EM also makes it possible to look at membrane protein complexes in a lipid bilayer, such as lipid nanodiscs, liposomes, or even inside cells now. A brief introduction to each of these techniques will be discussed with examples of the conformational landscape of magnesium channel CorA, voltage-gated potassium channel Kv1.2-2.1, a human excitatory amino acid transporter and more.