GPCR nanodisc panel improves membrane protein production

Nuclera has launched a nanodisc panel designed to improve screening and scale-up of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs), enabling active GPCR expression in as little as 48 hours.

The panel builds on the company’s eProtein Discovery™ workflow and provides researchers with preconfigured nanodisc combinations to help identify optimal membrane environments for GPCR expression. It includes a GPCR screening kit and scale-up reagents incorporating multiple membrane scaffold proteins and lipid formulations, enabling more consistent production of functional proteins for downstream analysis.

GPCRs remain one of the most important yet difficult protein classes to work with, despite being targets for a significant proportion of approved medicines. Traditional detergent-based approaches often compromise protein stability and native structure, limiting their usefulness in drug discovery. Nanodisc systems offer a more physiologically relevant membrane environment, supporting improved protein folding, stability and functional analysis.

By integrating pre-assembled nanodiscs with cell-free protein synthesis, the platform enables co-translational insertion of membrane proteins, improving yield and reducing variability in early-stage screening workflows. This approach is designed to accelerate the transition from screening to characterisation in membrane protein research.

The company says the panel is intended to help researchers improve expression success rates and reduce bottlenecks in GPCR studies by combining membrane engineering with rapid cell-free production technologies.

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