Transmembrane region of bacterial chemoreceptor is capable of promoting protein clustering.

ABSTRACT: Many membrane proteins are known to form higher-order oligomers, but the degree to which membrane regions could facilitate protein complex assembly remains largely unclear. Clusters of chemotaxis receptors are among the most prominent structures in the bacterial cell membrane, and they play important functions in processing of chemotactic signals. Although much work has been done to elucidate mechanisms of cluster formation, it almost exclusively focused on cytoplasmic interactions among receptors and other chemotaxis proteins, whereas involvement of membrane-mediated interactions was only hypothesized. Here we used imaging of constructs composed of only a fluorescent protein and the TM helices of Tar to demonstrate that interactions between the lipid bilayer and transmembrane (TM) helices

SUBMITTER: Pollard AM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5808774 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature