Membrane Protein Structure and Function Characterization

Lucie Hartmann, Estelle Metzger, Noémie Ottelard, Renaud Wagner

In the past decade, the methylotrophic yeast Pichia pastoris has proved to be one of the most efficient systems for mass production of recombinant eukaryotic membrane proteins (MPs), leading to the crystallization and structure determination for a variety of them. The actual overexpression of functional MPs achieved with this system is, however, often accompanied by the formation of a variable but significant proportion of misfolded and/or aggregated proteins that are co-extracted and co-purified during the purification process. In order to minimize this unwanted phenomenon, we devised a novel procedure in which MPs produced in Pichia pastoris are directly solubilized from whole cells instead of crude membrane preparation. This approach aims at favoring the extraction of correctly folded membrane proteins that have been targeted to the plasma membrane, limiting the solubilization of the misfolded proteins and protein aggregates that are stored in internal membrane compartments. The method described herewith is based on the formation of protoplasts through enzymatic treatment prior to protein solubilization. This chapter details a set of protocols going from yeast cell preparation and protein solubilization to purification using affinity and size exclusion chromatography.