Membrane protein crystallization using lipidic cubic phase (LCP) is proving to be a successful methodology for obtaining good quality diffracting crystals from membrane proteins due to its membrane native-like environment^[1].

Monoolein is the first choice lipid for performing an LCP crystallization experiment. However, since the nature of the lipid determines the nature of the LCP, it’s worth varying the LCP characteristics by screening different lipids, especially when initial crystallization attempts with monoolein have failed^[2,3].
The anionic phospholipid DSPG is used in combination with monoacylglycerols (MAGs) to create thermodynamically stable ultraswollen bicontinuous cubic phases with water channels five times larger than traditional lipidic mesophases, suitable for the crystallization of membrane proteins with large extracellular domains^[4].

The LCP host lipids & phospholipids listed below are suited to form a stable lipidic cubic phase for membrane protein crystallization.

References

[1] Landau and Rosenbusch (1996) Lipidic cubic phases: a novel concept for the crystallization of membrane proteins. PNAS 93:14532.
[2] Caffrey (2015) A comprehensive review of the lipid cubic phase or in meso method for crystallizing membrane and soluble proteins and complexes. Acta Cryst F 71:3.
[3] Caffrey and Cherezov (2009) Crystallizing Membrane Proteins Using Lipidic Mesophases. Nat Protoc. 4(5):706.
[4] Zabara et al. (2018) Design of ultra-swollen lipidic mesophases for the crystallization of membrane proteins with large extracellular domains. Nat. Commun. 9:544.