A detailed protocol for crystallizing membrane proteins by using lipidic mesophases is described. This method has variously been referred to as the lipidic cubic phase or in meso method. The method has been shown to be quite versatile in that it has been used to solve X-ray crystallographic structures of prokaryotic and eukaryotic proteins, proteins that are monomeric, homo-and hetero-multimeric, chromophorecontaining and chromophore-free, and alpha-helical and beta-barrel proteins. Recent successes using in meso crystallization are the human engineered beta2-adrenergic and adenosine A2a G protein-coupled receptors. Protocols are presented for reconstituting the membrane protein into the monoolein-based mesophase, and for setting up crystallizations in the manual mode. Additional steps in the overall process, such as crystal harvesting, are to be addressed in future video articles. The time required to prepare the protein-loaded mesophase and to set up a crystallization plate manually is about one hour. Video LinkThe video component of this article can be found at https://www.jove.com/video/1712/ ProtocolAn important focus in the area of structural and functional biology is the biological membrane (Figure 1). The membrane, which surrounds the cell and sub-cellular organelles when present, is a molecularly thin structure just two lipid molecules across and is studded with proteins. Structure and function as applied to both lipid and proteins are of interest. However, the focus of this article is restricted to membrane proteins.A better understanding of how membrane proteins function at a molecular level is sought for two reasons. Firstly, there is the intellectual satisfaction in knowing how they work. Secondly, by knowing how a protein works, there is always the prospect of being able to fix it should it malfunction or of improving or even modifying it for particular applications. Drug design is an obvious outcome of this type of work. One approach to figuring how a membrane protein works at a molecular level is to determine its structure. This involves establishing the location in 3-dimensional space of all atoms, or at least all non-hydrogen atoms, that make up the protein. The method we use for this purpose is macromolecular X-ray crystallography (MX). Figure 2 shows an example of a membrane protein whose structure was determined using MX. A diffraction quality crystal of the protein is required to do MX.Clearly, there are many steps involved in structure determination using macromolecular crystallography. This is illustrated in Figure 3. Typically, these include identifying a membrane protein target, and then producing, purifying and crystallizing it. Diffraction measurements are performed on the crystal using a home or a synchrotron X-ray source. The diffraction data are processed yielding an electron density map that is then fitted with a molecular model. The model, when refined, can be used to explore the mechanism of action of the protein and for structure-based drug design.The focus of this arti...

We present a mechanistic modeling methodology to predict both the percolation threshold and effective conductivity of infiltrated Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) electrodes. The model has been developed to mirror each step of the experimental fabrication process. The primary model output is the infiltrated electrode effective conductivity which provides results over a range of infiltrate loadings that are independent of the chosen electronically conducting material. The percolation threshold is utilized as a valuable output data point directly related to the effective conductivity to compare a wide range of input value choices. The predictive capability of the model is demonstrated by favorable comparison to two separate published experimental studies, one using strontium molybdate and one using La0.8Sr0.2FeO3-δ as infiltrate materials. Effective conductivities and percolation thresholds are shown for varied infiltrate particle size, pore size, and porosity with the infiltrate particle size having the largest impact on the results.

The ability of animal cells to crawl, change their shape, and respond to applied force is due to their cytoskeleton: A dynamic, cross-linked network of actin protein filaments and myosin motors. How these building blocks assemble to give rise to cells’ mechanics and behavior remains poorly understood. Using active micropost array detectors containing magnetic actuators, we have characterized the mechanics and fluctuations of cells’ actomyosin cortex and stress fiber network in detail. Here, we find that both structures display remarkably consistent power law viscoelastic behavior along with highly intermittent fluctuations with fat-tailed distributions of amplitudes. Notably, this motion in the cortex is dominated by occasional large, step-like displacement events, with a spatial extent of several micrometers. Overall, our findings for the cortex appear contrary to the predictions of a recent active gel model, while suggesting that different actomyosin contractile units act in a highly collective and cooperative manner. We hypothesize that cells’ actomyosin components robustly self-organize into marginally stable, plastic networks that give cells’ their unique biomechanical properties.

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