Folding of membrane
proteins
G. von Heijne
Dept. of Biochemistry, Stockholm University
Most integral membrane proteins consist of tightly packed bundles
of
transmembrane alpha-helices. Although only a handful of
high-resultion
structures are available, some architectural features that will
probably
apply to membrane proteins in general are already apparent.
Against this
background, molecular genetic techniques can provide very
detailed
information on, e.g., the positioning of transmembrane helices in
the
bilayer and on the conformational properties of various kinds of
amino
acids when part of a transmembrane helix.
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