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239 Membrane protein complexes Bernadette Byrne* and So Iwata† A wide range of membrane protein structures have been membrane proteins. Of the 15 recently solved structures published during the past two years. These have included covered in this review, five were obtained from membrane proteins from both eucaryotic and heterologously proteins overexpressed in Escherichia coli and two are overexpressed sources. Whereas some of these proteins were eucaryotic membrane protein structures (not including crystallised using conventional techniques, others employed the mitochondrial or chloroplast proteins). Two were crystallised new methods of lipidic cubic phase crystallisation and antibody using the lipidic cubic phase technique [1] and two were fragment co-crystallisation. These and other new approaches to crystallised as a co-complex with an antibody fragment [2]. the expression and crystallisation of membrane proteins are In the case of the E. coli ABC (ATP-binding cassette) accelerating structural studies of membrane protein complexes. transporter MsbA, the researchers expressed 20 different bacterial ABC transporters in E. coli and performed Addresses ~96 000 crystallisation trials in a high-throughput approach *Department of Biological Sciences and † Division of Biomedical [3••]. Thus, new techniques for and approaches to the Sciences, Imperial College, London SW7 2AZ, UK expression and crystallisation of membrane proteins a