New Techniques for Studying Biomembranes

Qiu-Xing Jiang is faculty in the Department of Microbiology and Cell Science and and Electron Microscopy Faculty Director at the University of Florida's Interdisciplinary Center for Biotechnology Research. His laboratory is working in two areas. One is the structural and functional studies of membrane proteins and intracellular signaling complexes. The second general direction is the development of new techniques for both single particle cryoEM and for studying eukaryotic membrane proteins in lipid environments.

• Introduction. Lipid compositions of cell membranes and quantification. Phase behavior and lipid organization in membranes. Atomic Force Microscopy of biomembranes. Secondary Ion Mass spectrometry of membrane lipids. Super-resolution imaging of lipid membranes. Single molecule imaging of lipids and proteins in membranes. Membrane interferometry for studying lipids and proteins. Solid state NMR to study of membrane proteins in membranes. X-ray diffractions from stacked membranes. Neutron diffractions from membrane proteins in membranes. cryoEM of Membrane Proteins in membrane. Single molecular fluorimetry for membrane proteins. FRET measurement of ion channel in membrane. X-ray crystallography of membrane proteins.

"Each chapter begins with an introduction that carefully covers the fundamentaloperating principles of each method illuminated by details of its historicaldevelopment. This extends to the mathematical functions encountered in thechapters on scanning angle interference microscopy and the analysis of proteinfunction in reconstituted membrane systems. Each chapter appears to be wellillustrated and thoroughly referenced. The end result is a concise andstraightforward introduction to the topics selected for each chapter." - Peter J. Kennelly, PhD(Virginia Tech)