Modeling of transmembrane seven helix bundles

Transmembrane seven helix bundles form a large family of membraneinserted receptors and are responsible for a wide range of biologicalfunctions. Experimental data suggest that their overall structureis similar to bacteriorhodopsin. We describe here a new approachfor the modeling of transmembrane seven helix bundles basedon statistically derived environmental preference parameterscombined with experimentally determined features of the receptors.The method was used to create a model for the human ß₂-adrenoreceptor.This model is physically plausible, is in reasonable agreementwith experimental data and may be helpful in planning new receptorengineering experiments.