Fluorine-19 NMR of integral membrane proteins illustrated with studies of GPCRs

• Published in: Current opinion in structural biology Vol. 23; no. 5; pp. 740 - 747
• Main Authors: Didenko, Tatiana, Liu, Jeffrey J, Horst, Reto, Stevens, Raymond C, Wüthrich, Kurt
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01.10.2013
• Subjects: Fluorine Radioisotopes; Membrane Proteins - chemistry; Membrane Proteins - metabolism; Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, Biomolecular - methods; Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled - chemistry; Receptors, G-Protein-Coupled - metabolism
• ISSN: 0959-440X; 1879-033X
• DOI: 10.1016/j.sbi.2013.07.011

•Renewed interest in 19F NMR for structural biology of complex molecular systems.•Advances in biochemistry and NMR techniques enable 19F NMR studies of new classes of membrane proteins.•19F NMR of GPCRs complements crystal structures with data on protein dynamics in long-range signal transfer. Fluorine-19 is a spin-½ NMR isotope with high sensitivity and large chemical shift dispersion, which makes it attractive for high resolution NMR spectroscopy in solution. For studies of membrane proteins it is further of interest that 19F is rarely found in biological materials, which enables observation of extrinsic 19F labels with minimal interference from background signals. Today, after a period with rather limited use of 19F NMR in structural biology, we witness renewed interest in this technology for studies of complex supramolecular systems. Here we report on recent 19F NMR studies with the G protein-coupled receptor family of membrane proteins.