Transport domain unlocking sets the uptake rate of an aspartate transporter.

ABSTRACT: Glutamate transporters terminate neurotransmission by clearing synaptically released glutamate from the extracellular space, allowing repeated rounds of signalling and preventing glutamate-mediated excitotoxicity. Crystallographic studies of a glutamate transporter homologue from the archaeon Pyrococcus horikoshii, GltPh, showed that distinct transport domains translocate substrates into the cytoplasm by moving across the membrane within a central trimerization scaffold. Here we report direct observations of these 'elevator-like' transport domain motions in the context of reconstituted proteoliposomes and physiological ion gradients using single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer (smFRET) imaging. We show that GltPh bearing two mutations introduced to impart characteristics of

SUBMITTER: Akyuz N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4351760 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature