Small-Angle X-ray and Neutron Scattering Demonstrates that Cell-Free Expression Produces Properly Formed Disc-Shaped Nanolipoprotein Particles

Published

December 19, 2017

Author(s)

Thomas Cleveland, Wei He, Angela C. Evans, Nicholas O. Fischer, Matthew A. Coleman, Paul Butler

Abstract

Nanolipoprotein particles (NLPs), composed of a membrane scaffold protein and lipids, have been used to support membrane proteins in a native-like bilayer environment for biochemical or structural studies. Traditionally, these NLPs have been prepared by the controlled removal of detergent from a detergent-solubilized protein-lipid mixture. Recently, an alternative method has been devloped using direct cell-free expression of the membrane scaffold protein in the presence of preformed lipid vesicles, which spontaneously produces NLPs without the need for detergent at any stage. Using SANS/SAXS, we show here that NLPs produced by this cell-free expression method are structurally indistinguishable from those produced va detergent removal. In addition, detailed structural information describing these NLPs can be obtained by fitting a capped core-shell cylinder type model to all SANS/SAXS data simultaneously.

Citation

Protein Science

Volume

27

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

NLPs, nanodiscs, nanolipoprotein particles, SANS, small-angle neutron scattering, cell-free expression

Citation

Cleveland, T. , He, W. , Evans, A. , Fischer, N. , Coleman, M. and Butler, P. (2017), Small-Angle X-ray and Neutron Scattering Demonstrates that Cell-Free Expression Produces Properly Formed Disc-Shaped Nanolipoprotein Particles, Protein Science, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=922386 (Accessed October 2, 2025)