UC San Diego

Membrane proteins reside along the barrier between intracellular and extracellular milieu. They regulate transport and transduce signal necessary to maintain life. Critical to these functions are dynamic motions capable of transmitting molecules or information. The method of HDX-MS is uniquely suited to studying such conformational dynamics, as the timescales of measurement refer to the broad motions associated with domain movement and catalysis. This work employs HDX-MS to study the dynamics of three unique membrane associated proteins. Kinetic analysis and the method of HDX-MS are extended to characterize in vitro generated monoclonal camelid antibody fragments.