title: Computational design of membrane proteins.
abstract: This article reviews the recent successes of computational protein design techniques applied to integral membrane proteins. This emerging area is still handicapped by significant difficulties in the experimental characterization of the stability and structure of the designed proteins. Nevertheless, by focusing on oligomeric complexes of single-span transmembrane (TM) peptides with detectable activity, the computational design of membrane proteins has already produced very exciting results. The 'take-home message' is that optimization of van der Waals packing and hydrogen bonding (both 'canonical' and weak Cα-H⋯O bonds) can produce functional structures of remarkable stability and specificity in the membrane.
authors.affiliation: University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of Biochemistry, 433 Babcock Dr., Madison, WI 53706, USA. senes@wisc.edu
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Senes
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004579:Electron Transport; D006801:Humans; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D015202:Protein Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D017510:Protein Folding; D017433:Protein Structure, Secondary
chemical_list: D008565:Membrane Proteins