Rational engineering of an elevator-type metal transporter ZIP8 reveals a conditional selectivity filter critically involved in determining substrate specificity.

ABSTRACT: Engineering of transporters to alter substrate specificity as desired holds great potential for applications, including metabolic engineering. However, the lack of knowledge on molecular mechanisms of substrate specificity hinders designing effective strategies for transporter engineering. Here, we applied an integrated approach to rationally alter the substrate preference of ZIP8, a Zrt-/Irt-like protein (ZIP) metal transporter with multiple natural substrates, and uncovered the determinants of substrate specificity. By systematically replacing the differentially conserved residues with the counterparts in the zinc transporter ZIP4, we created a zinc-preferring quadruple variant (Q180H/E343H/C310A/N357H), which exhibited largely reduced transport activities towards Cd²⁺, Fe

SUBMITTER: Jiang Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10372143 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature