Date of Award
Spring 2013
Document Type
Thesis
Terms of Use
© 2013 Richard Chen. All rights reserved. This work is freely available courtesy of the author. It may only be used for non-commercial, educational, and research purposes. For all other uses, including reproduction and distribution, please contact the copyright holder.
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Chemistry & Biochemistry Department
First Advisor
Kathleen P. Howard
Abstract
M2 is a 97-residue, multi-functional transmembrane protein that has been implicated in processes important to viral replication, such as proton conduction and viral budding of Influenza A. Due to experimental difficulties associated with the overexpression of membrane proteins, previous structural studies of M2 have focused on various synthetic truncated forms of the protein, which has lead to incomplete and sometimes inconsistent results. Therefore structural studies of the full-length M2 protein avoid the potential artifacts associated with truncations and provide more physiologically relevant data regarding the M2 protein. This research describes the successful overexpression, purification, spin-labeling, and reconstitution of the full-length M2 into lipid vesicles. Circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy are also utilized to characterize the full-length M2 protein in both micelles and lipid vesicles.
Recommended Citation
Chen, Richard , '13, "Overexpression, Purification, Spin-Labeling, and Characterization of Full-Length M2, an Integral Membrane Protein of Influenza A, in Detergent Micelles and in Mixed Lipid Vesicles" (2013). Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards. 204.
https://works.swarthmore.edu/theses/204