Engineering of soluble bacteriorhodopsin.

ABSTRACT: Studies and applications of membrane proteins remain challenging due to the requirement of maintaining them in a lipid membrane or a membrane mimic. Modern machine learning-based protein engineering methods offer a possibility of generating soluble analogs of membrane proteins that retain the active site structure and ligand-binding properties; however, clear examples are currently missing. Here, we report successful engineering of proteins dubbed NeuroBRs that mimic the active site (retinal-binding pocket) of bacteriorhodopsin, a light-driven proton pump and well-studied model membrane protein. NeuroBRs are soluble and stable, bind retinal and exhibit photocycles under illumination. The crystallographic structure of NeuroBR_A, determined at anisotropic resolution reaching 1.76 Å, reveals

SUBMITTER: Nikolaev A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12094106 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature