Transporters through the looking glass. An insight into the mechanisms of ion-coupled transport and methods that help reveal them.

ABSTRACT: Cell membranes, despite providing a barrier to protect intracellular constituents, require selective gating for influx of important metabolites including ions, sugars, amino acids, neurotransmitters and efflux of toxins and metabolic end-products. The machinery involved in carrying out this gating process comprises of integral membrane proteins that use ionic electrochemical gradients or ATP hydrolysis, to drive concentrative uptake or efflux. The mechanism through which ion-coupled transporters function is referred to as alternating-access. In the recent past, discrete modes of alternating-access have been described with the elucidation of new transporter structures and their snapshots in altered conformational states. Despite X-ray structures being the primary sources of mechanistic info

SUBMITTER: Majumder P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6345361 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature