Helical membrane proteins: diversity of functions in the context of simplearchitecture

During the past year, research on helical membrane proteins has brought ins ights into the use of deviations from canonical alpha -helical conformation to support function and the further investigation of the sequestration of protein regions from the lipid bilayer to enhance these structural alternat ives. Also, the structural roles of polar sidechains, the identification of motifs in helix interactions and the significance of certain topologies on a genome-wide scale have been further explored.