A timely and concise reference tool, the reader will find herein a resource that can be used to develop methods for any membrane protein. The first section describes the expression of membrane proteins, and the different experimental systems that people have employed to express membrane proteins in large quantities. The second section examines different detergents used for membrane solubilization, concentrating on recently developed detergents. The third section describes the purification of membrane proteins concentrating on methods used to purify membrane proteins from expression systems....

Knowledge of the three-dimensional structure of a protein is absolutely required for the complete understanding of its function. The spatial orientation of amino acids in the active site of an enzyme demonstrates how substrate specificity is defined, and assists the medicinal chemist in the design of s- cific, tight-binding inhibitors. The shape and contour of a protein surface hints at its interaction with other proteins and with its environment. Structural ana- sis of multiprotein complexes helps to define the role and interaction of each individual component, and can predict the...