Membrane-protein systems/interactions

The development of novel pharmaceuticals species is tightly related to the mechanism of interactions between drugs and target integral membrane proteins. Solid-state NMR is highly attractive for these biological systems for two main reasons there is no limitation on molecular mass and it enables to study the membrane protein systems in their native forms. 

Because of the limited number of functions of the outer membrane, it consists of much fewer protein components than does the cytoplasmic membrane.As will be discussed later, the major outer membrane proteins exist in extremely large quantities, of the order of 1-8 x 10 molecules/cell, suggesting that they occupy a considerable part of the outer membrane structure. This unique feature of the outer membrane provides us with an excellent system for the investigation of the mechanism of biosynthesis and the mode of assembly of individual outer membrane proteins, their interaction with other proteins, phospholipids, and lipopolysaccharide, and their functions. 

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