A New Class of Amphiphiles Bearing Rigid Hydrophobic Groups for Solubilization and Stabilization of Membrane Proteins

We recently published “A New Class of Amphiphiles Bearing Rigid Hydrophobic Groups for Solubilization and Stabilization of Membrane Proteins” in Chemistry – A European Journal.

Conferring aqueous solubility on membrane proteins generally requires the use of a detergent or other amphiphilic agent. A new class of amphiphiles was synthesized, based on steroidal lipophilic groups, and evaluated with several membrane proteins. The results show that the new amphiphile, “glyco-diosgenin” (GDN), confers enhanced stability to a variety of membrane proteins in solution relative to popular conventional detergents, such as dodecylmaltoside (DDM).