Mechanism of bacterial signal transduction revealed by molecular dynamics of Tsr dimers and trimers of dimers in lipid vesicles.

ABSTRACT: Bacterial chemoreceptors provide an important model for understanding signalling processes. In the serine receptor Tsr from E. coli, a binding event in the periplasmic domain of the receptor dimer causes a shift in a single transmembrane helix of roughly 0.15 nm towards the cytoplasm. This small change is propagated through the ≈ 22 nm length of the receptor, causing downstream inhibition of the kinase CheA. This requires interactions within a trimer of receptor dimers. Additionally, the signal is amplified across a 53,000 nm(2) array of chemoreceptor proteins, including ≈ 5,200 receptor trimers-of-dimers, at the cell pole. Despite a wealth of experimental data on the system, including high resolution structures of individual domains and extensive mutagenesis data, it remains uncertain how

SUBMITTER: Hall BA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3447960 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature