Membrane Proteins - Structure and Mechanism

描述（由申请人提供）：题为“膜蛋白结构和机制”的Keystone会议将于2003年2月4日至9日在新墨西哥州陶斯举行。会议将由快速发展的膜蛋白领域的成熟和新兴研究人员发表演讲。大约30%的人类基因组可能编码跨膜和外周膜蛋白，这些蛋白对大多数细胞信号通路和代谢系统的调节和功能至关重要。此外，目前大多数药物都是针对膜蛋白的。然而，直到最近几年，对膜蛋白结构和机制的分子理解进展相对缓慢。目前，一系列复杂的物理、化学和生化方法已经开始阐明膜蛋白主要功能亚类的基本结构和机制特征，包括跨膜通道、受体、转运体和外周膜蛋白。这次会议是独一无二的，因为没有其他这样规模的会议能把主要研究膜蛋白的研究人员聚集在一起，比较他们的最新发现，讨论当前的争议，并传播他们最新的实验方法。此外，会议的小规模和非正式形式鼓励高级研究员，初级研究员，博士后和学生之间的互动，从而提供了一个宝贵的培训环境。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The Keystone Conference entitled "Membrane Protein Structure and Mechanism" will meet February 4-9, 2003 in Taos, New Mexico. The conference will feature presentations by both established and beginning investigators in the rapidly advancing field of membrane proteins. Approximately 30% of the human genome may encode transmembrane and peripheral membrane proteins which are critical to the regulation and function of most cellular signaling pathways and metabolic systems. Moreover, most current pharmaceutical agents are directed toward membrane proteins. Yet progress toward a molecular understanding of membrane protein structure and mechanism has been comparatively slow until recent years. Currently, a wide array of sophisticated physical, chemical and biochemical methods have begun to elucidate basic structural and mechanistic features of the major functional subclasses of membrane proteins, including transmembrane channels, receptors, transporters, and peripheral membrane proteins. The proposed meeting is unique, since no other conference of this size brings together leading researchers focusing on all the major classes of membrane proteins to compare their latest findings, discuss current controversies, and disseminate their newest experimental approaches. Moreover, the small size and informal format of the meeting encourages interactions between senior investigators, beginning investigators, postdocs and students, thereby providing a valuable training environment. Participants in the meeting will see, in many cases for the first time, presentations describing recently solved high resolution structures of a transmembrane anion channel, a membrane-spanning chemotaxis receptor, an ABC transmembrane transporter, and multiple peripheral membrane proteins. Other presentations will describe the structural and chemical events that occur as membrane proteins cycle between different functional states including opened/closed, on/off, inward/outward-facing, bound/free. Overall, the conference will provide a forum in which membrane protein researchers come together to present exciting new results with broad, significant implications for membrane protein structure and mechanism.