Development of a biochemical and biophysical suite for integral membrane protein targets: A review

The generation of integral membrane proteins (IMPs) in heterologous systems and their characterization remains a major challenge in biomedical research. Significant efforts have been invested both in academia and in the pharmaceutical industry to establish technologies for the expression, isolation and characterization of IMPs. Here we summarize some of the key aspects, which are important to support structure-based drug design (SBDD) in drug discovery projects. We furthermore include timeline estimates and an overview of the target selection and biophysical screening approaches.