Trends in the use of amphipathic environments and future perspectives for determining the structure of membrane proteins by cryo-EM

Membrane proteins (MPs) play essential roles in a wide range of cellular processes and represent major therapeutic targets. Nevertheless, their structural and functional characterization remains challenging due to inherent difficulties in production, extraction, and stabilization outside their native lipid environment. The rise of cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) has markedly accelerated the structure determination of MPs through single-particle analysis (SPA). A systematic examination of