New Techniques for Studying Biomembranes describes some of the latest methods used to investigate the dynamic distribution of specific lipids in membranes and their effects on other membrane components. The contributors present important discoveries with respect to lipid analysis and lipid interactions with membrane proteins. Various methods, which have been used to study lipid bilayer structure and lipid organization in membranes, include both in vitro and in vivo membrane systems, and study membrane proteins in various membrane systems. Key Features: Reviews both in vivo and in vitro analytical technologies and methods for studying membrane structure and function Explores how lipid bilayers and membrane proteins interact Includes contributions from an international team of researchers actively studying membrane structure and function Identifies various diseases whose causes are related to membrane proteins Related Titles: Christopher R. Jacobs, Hayden Huang, and Ronald Y. Kwon. Introduction to Cell Mechanics and Mechanobiology (ISBN 978-0-8153-4425-4) Wendell Lim and Bruce Mayer. Cell Signaling: Principles and Mechanisms (ISBN 978-0-8153-4244-1) Stephen Rothman. Proteins Crossing Membranes: A Scientist’s Memoir (978-0-3670-7449-4)

This book describes methods used to investigate the function and distribution of lipids in membranes. Contributors present discoveries that have to do with lipid analysis and lipid interactions with other components of membranes, such as proteins, receptors, transporters and ion channels.

Due to recent advancements in the development of numerical algorithms and computational hardware, computer simulations of biological membranes, often requiring use of substantial computational resources, are now reaching a mature stage. Since molecular processes in membranes occur on a multitude of spatial and time scales, molecular simulations of membranes can also serve as a testing ground for use of multi-scale simulation techniques. This book addresses some of the important issues related to understanding properties and behavior of model biological membranes and it Shows how simulations improve our understanding of biological membranes and makes connections with experimental results. Presents a careful discussion of the force fields used in the membrane simulations including detailed all-atom fields and coarse-grained fields. Presents a continuum description of membranes. Discusses a variety of issues such as influence of membrane surfaces on properties of water, interaction between membranes across water, nanoparticle permeation across the membrane, action of anesthetics and creation of inhomogeneous regions in membranes. Discusses important methodological issues when using simulations to examine phenomena such as pore creation and permeation across membranes. Discusses progress recently achieved in modeling bacterial membranes. It will be a valuable resource for graduate students, researchers and instructors in biochemistry, biophysics, pharmacology, physiology, and computational biology.

Biological membranes play a significant role in a range of biological processes such as ion-transport and signal transduction. Over the years much effort has been devoted towards developing an understanding of biomembrane structure. The study of this subject is now reaching an important stage. This is because at last the full three-dimensional structure of certain membrane proteins is beginning to be resolved. In the past three-dimensional structures of membrane proteins were difficult to obtain as only two dimensional crystals were available. In recent years satisfactory crystals have been obtained and X-ray diffraction techniques have been applied. This has led to the three dimensional structures of the photosynthetic reaction centres, porins and more recently the structure of cytochrome oxidase. Of course not all membrane proteins are readily crystallisable and some are not even available in sufficient quantities to obtain the necessary crystals or to carry out biophysical experiments. In some cases e.g. the voltage-gated potassium ion channel membrane proteins their structure has been proposed mainly on the basis of molecular biology methods. This has prompted the search for alternative approaches for characterising biomembrane structure. Molecular biological studies are providing a wealth of information on a number of different membrane proteins. Combining the information derived from such studies with molecular modelling is becoming extremely useful for relating structure to function. Development of other approaches include synthesis and structure- function analysis of peptides corresponding to functionally important domains of membrane proteins. This book presents a series of Chapters discussing how a combination of molecular biological, biophysical and theoretical (molecular modelling) techniques are helping us to obtain a much clearer picture of biomembrane structure. After an introductory Chapter on the Principles of membrane Protein Structure, the book is divided into two sections; one dealing with crystallographic approaches and the other non-crystallographic approaches such as NMR, AFM, SPR and FTIR spectroscopy. Chapters dealing with the recently solved crystal structure of cytochrome oxidase and bacteriorhodopsin are presented. The book contains contributions from leading membrane scientists describing their latest studies. It provides an up to date coverage of the developments in the field of biomembranes with particular emphasis on membrane proteins.

The study of membranes has become of high importance in the fields of biology, pharmaceutical chemistry and medicine, since much of what happens in a cell or in a virus involves biological membranes. The current book is an excellent introduction to the area, which explains how modern analytical methods can be applied to study biological membranes and membrane proteins and the bioprocesses they are involved to.

This textbook provides a strong foundation and a clear overview for students of membrane biology and an invaluable synthesis of cutting-edge research for working scientists. The text retains its clear and engaging style, providing a solid background in membrane biochemistry, while also incorporating the approaches of biophysics, genetics and cell biology to investigations of membrane structure, function and biogenesis to provide a unique overview of this fast-moving field. A wealth of new high resolution structures of membrane proteins are presented, including the Na/K pump and a receptor-G protein complex, offering exciting insights into how they function. All key tools of current membrane research are described, including detergents and model systems, bioinformatics, protein-folding methodology, crystallography and diffraction, and molecular modeling. This comprehensive and up-to-date text, emphasising the correlations between membrane research and human health, provides a solid foundation for all those working in this field.