Two-Dimensional Crystallization of Membrane Proteins: Screening Strategies

Membrane proteins play fundamental roles in a broad range of biological processes and represent more than half of the current drugs targets [1]. Electron microscopy has been effective in producing high resolution representations, but the low signal-to-noise ratio inherent to the imaging process requires averaging of thousands of perfectly aligned proteins. Two-dimensional (2D) crystallization constitutes an advantage over single particle analysis, as the proteins are already aligned within the crystal. Furthermore, as opposed to X-ray analysis of three-dimensional crystals, the proteins are inserted into a lipid bilayer which makes the reconstitution closer to the native environment.