The Transmembrane Protein Center

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The Transmembrane Protein Center (TMPC) proposes to function as collaborative project within the PSI:Biology Network. The TMPC research team has been assembled to provide diverse skills and experience in all constituent tasks of structural genomics. The assembled team includes scientists with experience in the expression, production, and characterization of membrane proteins, a strong track record of studying the interactions of membrane proteins with their protein partners and biological ligands, and proven ability to solve protein structures. The team has strong grounding in the use of bioinformatics and bioanalytical techniques. Participants bring unique experience with the function of membrane proteins, including assay development, preparation methods, or studies with either purified proteins or living organisms. This emphasis on merging the production of membrane proteins for structure determination with the power of functional characterizations is the central philosophy of our Center. The TMPC has a primary goal of determining a founding structure in each of four target classes elaborated in this proposal. Our second goal is to establish an efficient membrane protein production pipeline so that increases in throughput may be progressively obtained. The TMPC expects to improve its ability to create protein variants, to refine screening based on functional and biophysical characterizations, and to improve sorting between multiple expressions pathways to find the best way produce a protein of interest. Emphasis on small-scale purification screening and further integration of automation into our efforts will increase efficiency. Expanded options for crystallization screening, access to synchrotrons, and improvements in the software used to solve structures will contribute to the increased throughput necessary to achieve PSI:Biology goals. This project is also well poised to contribute the expertise and leadership needed to successfully advance the emerging goals of the PSI:Biology Network, including outreach and technology transfer to new participants.