{"doi":"10.1101/2022.01.10.475744","title":"Membrane-active Polymers: NCMNP13-x, NCMNP21-x and NCMNP21b-x for Membrane Protein Structural Biology","abstract":"Abstract Membrane proteins are a ubiquitous group of bio-macromolecules responsible for many crucial biological processes and serve as drug targets for a wide range of modern drugs. Detergent-free technologies such as styrene-maleic acid lipid particles (SMALP), diisobutylene-maleic acid lipid particles (DIBMALP), and native cell membrane nanoparticles (NCMN) systems have recently emerged as revolutionary alternatives to the traditional detergent-based approaches for membrane protein research. NCMN systems aim to create a membrane-active polymer library suitable for high-resolution structure determination. Herein, we report our design, synthesis, characterization and comparative application analyses of three novel classes of NCMN polymers, NCMNP13-x, NCMNP21-x and NCMNP21b-x. Although each NCMN polymer can solubilize various model membrane proteins and conserve native lipids into NCMN particles, only the NCMNP21b-x series reveals lipid-protein particles with good buffer compatibility and high homogeneity suitable for single-particle cryo-EM analysis. Consequently, the NCMNP21b-x polymers that bring out high-quality NCMN particles are particularly attractive for membrane protein structural biology. Graphical abstract Highlights Demonstrate straightforward strategies for tailoring styrene-maleic co-polymer (SMA) that revealed novel buffer compatible polymers, NCMNP13-50, NCMNP21-20 and NCMNP21b-x. Elucidate how modification factors alter the membrane-active properties of these polymers, i.e., membrane protein extraction efficiency, morphology, etc. Provide valuable insights into the rational design of membrane-active polymers for membrane protein structural biology. NCMNP21b-x polymers are highly compatible with high-resolution structure determination using an emerging technique, cryo-EM.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2022,"id":300768,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":2,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9613,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2022-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":733589,"name":"Claudio Catalano","orcid":"0000-0002-2437-6235","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":733593,"name":"Youzhong Guo","orcid":"0000-0001-7177-9603","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":991726,"name":"Thi Kim Hoang Trinh","orcid":"0000-0002-9906-5896","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":48,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T00:31:57.812980Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}