Question

Where would you expect to find polar amino acids in a protein in an membrane environment? What force drives this behavior? Would you expect to find them in the same location if the protein was in an aqueous environment

Answer 1

Answer- In the membrane environment the polar amino acids tends to be present on the surface of membrane and interacts with the hydrophilic environment outside and inside the membrane, while non polar amino acid in Alpha helical chains of proteins tend to be inside the hydrophobic part of membrane.

This occurs on "like dissolves like" principle according to which the polar substances tend to remain with polar substances while nonpolar and hydrophobic substances tends to remain away from polar substances.

Proteins in aquatic environment tends to maintain there structure in such a manner that promotes outside position of polar amino acids while nonpolar amino acids will form hydrophobic core of protein.