Assembly of anthrax toxin pore: lethal-factor complexes into lipid nanodiscs.

We have devised a procedure to incorporate the anthrax protective antigen (PA) pore complexed with the N-terminal domain of anthrax lethal factor (LFN ) into lipid nanodiscs and analyzed the resulting complexes by negative-stain electron microscopy. Insertion into nanodiscs was performed without relying on primary and secondary detergent screens. The preparations were relatively pure, and the percentage of PA pore inserted into nanodiscs on EM grids was high (∼43%).