Transporters category listing 3 | Beckstein Lab

We show that one of the best-studied secondary active transporters, the lactose permease LacY, goes through an occluded conformation during its transport cycle. We propose an atomically detailed model of the apo-occluded state. The simulations predict the formation of a transient salt bridge that has been hypothesized in the canonical model for transport of LacY. The simulations are validated by comparison to experimental EPR DEER data, using a new approach to simulate spin-label distance distributions through post-processing of molecular dynamics trajectories. We also define a set of order parameters that consistently classify all known MFS transporter structures as outward-open, occluded, or inward-open conformations.

In a combined X-ray crystallography/biochemistry/molecular simulation study published in Nature we present the structure of the sodium/proton antiporter NapA in its outward facing conformation. Together with the inward facing conformation of the related transporter NhaA we can now understand the conformational changes required for the sodium/proton antiport mechanism.

Secondary transporters couple the free energy stored in an ionic gradient to the movement of solutes across the cell membrane. The coupling enables these transmembrane proteins to transport small molecules against their own concentration gradients. The transporters function by cycling between different conformational states in which access to the central binding site is switched from the extracellular solution to the intracellular compartment. Using experimental and computational approaches we could visualize for the first time how this process occurs for a secondary transporter.