Yeast--a panacea for the structure-function analysis of membrane proteins?

In recent years, the scientific community has begun to realise that the structure-function analysis of membrane proteins has lagged considerably behind that of their soluble counterparts. A boom in the field of membrane protein biology has resulted in the tailoring of techniques for the cloning, expression, purification and characterisation of these somewhat intractable proteins and most notably in the optimisation of several alternative host systems for this purpose. This Review Article summarises the use of yeast as a host. Compared with other hosts, it is clear that yeast combines the advantages of eukaryotes with the ease of handling of prokaryotes. Moreover, this organism provides membrane protein biologists with a panacea for structure-function analyses, not least because the tools of yeast genetics are at their disposal.