Systems for production of proteins for biomimetic devices

Production of large amounts of highly efficient membrane proteins (MPs) is one of the most challenging tasks in biomimetic (BM) membrane technology. Bottlenecks in protein expression approaches are raised by the hydrophobic nature of MPs and their complex mechanism of targeting, translocation and stable integration into native membranes. Over the last decade, new and more efficient protocols have been developed to overcome these problems and enhance the overexpression of MPs. Methods to produce MPs as a precipitate or synthesize them directly into detergents or into given liposomes have been also devised. This chapter focuses on the newly modified Escherichia coli, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Pichia pastoris and cell-free systems as the most flexible and cost effective technologies for preparative scale production of MPs. Recent works reporting production of high quality samples of aquaporins (AQPs), a class of MPs with unique water conductance properties, are reviewed. Finally, we discuss the feasibility of exploiting the AQP channels for developing biomimetic water filtration and sensor devices of superior performance.