Insights to the evolution of Nucleobase-Ascorbate Transporters (NAT/NCS2 family) from the Cys-scanning analysis of xanthine permease XanQ.

ABSTRACT: The nucleobase-ascorbate transporter or nucleobase-cation symporter-2 (NAT/NCS2) family is one of the five known families of transporters that use nucleobases as their principal substrates and the only one that is evolutionarily conserved and widespread in all major taxa of organisms. The family is a typical paradigm of a group of related transporters for which conservation in sequence and overall structure correlates with high functional variations between homologs. Strikingly, the human homologs fail to recognize nucleobases or related cytotoxic compounds. This fact allows important biomedical perspectives for translation of structure-function knowledge on this family to the rational design of targeted antimicrobial purine-related drugs. To date, very few homologs have been characterized

SUBMITTER: Frillingos S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3476789 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature