Aquaporins

Aquaporins are a family of membrane proteins which regulate transport of water, glycerol etc. across the hydrophobic cell membranes. To date hundreds of aquaporins have been identified and investigated in numerous organisms such as bacteria, fungi, plants, mammals etc.

Living cells are surrounded by a lipid bilayer – a membrane with a thickness of approximately 5 nanometers. It is in these bilayers that the aquaporins function by transporting water molecules in and out of the cell.

Aquaporins from the same genus tend to have high sequence similarity from one species to another, whereas aquaporins from different genes tend to be very dissimilar even within the same species. This shows that although most aquaporins have the same function (i.e. water transport) they are very specialised in terms of the environment in which they function (e.g. tissue, organelle).

Thus, one of the major challenges in incorporating aquaporins into artificial membranes lies in finding the right match between the aquaporin and the membrane material. Danfoss AquaZ has found this match and worldwide the only team able to produce Nano Membranes using scalable and industrialised production processes.