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Engineering Spores To Display G Protein-Coupled Receptors For Directed Evolution, Alyssa Misoo Kim

Theses

All human cells are surrounded by a plasma membrane made from a phospholipid bilayer, which is responsible for maintaining a biologically active species, while stopping entry of deleterious substances from the outside. G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the membrane proteins, which transmit signals across the cell membrane. GPCRs are involved in almost every physiological process, and irregular control leads to pathological conditions. Therefore, they are major drug targets. Crystal structure determination is required to understand the molecular details of activation/deactivation. However, GPCRs are difficult to crystallize because of stability issues. An efficient protein engineering system needs to be developed. The …