Intrinsic membrane proteins must usually be extracted from the native membrane with the aid of synthetic amphiphiles and then stabilized in a soluble form before detailed structural and functional characterization is possible. We describe new amphiphiles with unusual architectures that are useful for extraction and stabilization of photosynthetic protein superassemblies from bacterial membranes. Our results suggest that incorporating branch points in both the hydrophilic and lipophilic portions can lead to favorable amphiphile behavior.

The structures in Scheme 1 and the structure of TPA-2-S in the main text and the Table of Contents were inadvertently drawn as l-rather than d-sugars. The correct stereochemistries of the carbohydrates are shown here. The authors apologise for this error.