Membranes & Membrane Proteins

Membranes & Membrane Proteins

Membrane proteins play important roles in many biological pathways. Understanding membrane proteins may require an integrative approach since certain structural and mechanistic aspects of these proteins can be elusive to experimental methods. In Meiler Lab, we use both computational and experimental methods to investigate a multitude of membrane proteins. Our areas of focus include modeling GPCR interactions with peptides and small molecules, investigation of the behavior of lipid and lipid mimetics interacting with membrane proteins, protein – lipid interactions to probe the role of lipid binding to membrane proteins on protein activity, and structural and mechanistic investigations of the voltage-gated ion channels, transporter membrane proteins, and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors.

G Protein-Coupled Receptor (GPCR)

With nearly 800 members in the human genome the G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the biggest family of transmembrane proteins and receptors. All GPCRs consist of seven transmembrane helices, ...

Lipids & Mimetics

Membrane proteins are biomolecular machines that situate within complex lipid membrane environments, which make them challenging systems to study. Lipids serve as determinants for the structural conformation of a membrane protein ...

Protein-Lipid Interactions

Cholesterol (CLR) has been shown to alter integral membrane protein (IMP) function. However, understanding the molecular mechanisms of this process is complicated by limited and conflicting structural data. ...

Voltage-gated Ion Channels

Membrane transport is essential to many areas of cellular life. The movement of ions across the cell membrane is carried out by ion channels which play crucial roles in many physiological processes such as ...

Transporters

Membrane transporters mediate the translocation of a plethora of substrates with different chemical and physical properties ranging from a single metal ion to large biological complexes. ...

Nicotinic Receptors

Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR) are homo- or hetero-pentameric ligand-gated ion channels of the Cys- loop superfamily that play important roles in the nervous system and muscles such as addiction, pain, ...