Department of Physiology and Biophysics, and Center for Biomembrane Systems, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA. stephen.white@uci.edu
The first atomic-resolution structure of a membrane protein was solved in 1985. Twenty-four years and more than 180 unique structures later, what have we have learned? An examination of the atomic details of several diverse membrane proteins reveals some remarkable biophysical features and suggests that we can expect to achieve much more in the decades to come.