The structure of the sodium-benzylhydantoin transport protein Mhp1 from Microbacterium liquefaciens comprises a five-helix inverted repeat, which is widespread among secondary transporters. Here, we report the crystal structure of an inward-facing conformation of Mhp1 at 3.8 angstroms resolution, complementing its previously described structures in outward-facing and occluded states. From analyses of the three structures and molecular dynamics simulations, we propose a mechanism for the transport cycle in Mhp1. Switching from the outward- to the inward-facing state, to effect the inward release of sodium and benzylhydantoin, is primarily achieved by a rigid body movement of transmembrane helices 3, 4, 8, and 9 relative to the rest of the protein. This forms the basis of an alternating access mechanism applicable to many transporters of this emerging superfamily.

The nucleobase-cation-symport-1 (NCS1) transporters are essential components of salvage pathways for nucleobases and related metabolites. Here, we report the 2.85-angstrom resolution structure of the NCS1 benzyl-hydantoin transporter, Mhp1, from Microbacterium liquefaciens. Mhp1 contains 12 transmembrane helices, 10 of which are arranged in two inverted repeats of five helices. The structures of the outward-facing open and substrate-bound occluded conformations were solved, showing how the outward-facing cavity closes upon binding of substrate. Comparisons with the leucine transporter LeuT(Aa) and the galactose transporter vSGLT reveal that the outward- and inward-facing cavities are symmetrically arranged on opposite sides of the membrane. The reciprocal opening and closing of these cavities is synchronized by the inverted repeat helices 3 and 8, providing the structural basis of the alternating access model for membrane transport.

Photosystem II (PSII) is a large homodimeric protein-cofactor complex that acts as light-driven water:plastoquinone oxidoreductase and is located in the photosynthetic thylakoid membrane of plants, green algae and cyanobacteria. The principal function of PSII is to oxidize two water molecules at the unique Mn 4 Ca cluster to molecular (atmospheric) oxygen, 4 protons and 4 electrons. The protons serve to drive ATP synthetase and the electrons reduce plastoquinone (Q B ) to plastoquinol (Q B H 2 ) that is exported and delivers the electrons (through the cytochrome b 6 f complex) to photosystem I. Here the electrons gain a high reducing potential and serve at NADP reductase to generate NADPH that together with ATP reduces CO 2 to carbohydrates in the Calvin cycle. The crystal structure of PSII from Thermosynechococcus elongatus at 2.9-Å resolution [1] allowed the unambiguous assignment of all 20 protein subunits and complete modeling of all 35 chlorophyll a, 2 pheophytin, 2 cytochrome, 2 plastoquinone, and 12 carotenoid molecules, 25 integral lipids, 1 chloride ion and the Mn 4 Ca cluster per PSII monomer. The presence of a third plastoquinone Q C and a second plastoquinone-transfer channel, which were not observed before, suggest mechanisms for plastoquinolplastoquinone exchange, and we calculated other possible water or dioxygen and proton channels. Putative oxygen positions obtained from Xenon derivative crystals indicate a role for lipids in oxygen diffusion to the cytoplasmic side of PSII. The chloride position suggests a role in protontransfer reactions because it is bound through a putative water molecule to the Mn 4 Ca cluster at a distance of 6.5 Å and is close to two possible proton transfer channels.

Summaryg-Glutamyltranspeptidase (GGT) is a periplasmic enzyme of Helicobacter pylori implicated in its pathogenesis towards mammalian cells. We have cloned and expressed the H. pylori strain 26695 recombinant GGT protein in Escherichia coli and purified it to homogeneity. The purified protein exhibited hydrolysis activity with very high affinities for glutamine and glutathione shown by apparent K m values lower than 1 mM. H. pylori cells were unable to take up extracellular glutamine and glutathione directly. Instead, these substances were hydrolysed to glutamate by the action of GGT outside the cells. The glutamate produced was then transported by a Na + -dependent reaction into H. pylori cells, where it was mainly incorporated into the TCA cycle and partially utilized as a substrate for glutamine synthesis. These observations show that one of the principle physiological functions of H. pylori GGT is to enable H. pylori cells to utilize extracellular glutamine and glutathione as a source of glutamate. As glutamine and glutathione are important nutrients for maintenance of healthy gastrointestinal tissue, their depletion by the GGT enzyme is hypothesized to account for the damaging of mammalian cells and the pathophysiology of H. pylori.

Drug efflux proteins are widespread amongst microorganisms, including pathogens. They can contribute to both natural insensitivity to antibiotics and to emerging antibiotic resistance and so are potential targets for the development of new antibacterial drugs. The design of such drugs would be greatly facilitated by knowledge of the structures of these transport proteins, which are poorly understood, because of the difficulties of obtaining crystals of quality. We describe a structural genomics approach for the amplified expression, purification and characterisation of prokaryotic drug efflux proteins of the 'Major Facilitator Superfamily' (MFS) of transport proteins from Helicobacter pylori, Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, Bacillus subtilis, Brucella melitensis, Campylobacter jejuni, Neisseria meningitides and Streptomyces coelicolor. The H. pylori putative drug resistance protein, HP1092, and the S. aureus QacA proteins are used as detailed examples. This strategy is an important step towards reproducible production of transport proteins for the screening of drug binding and for optimisation of crystallisation conditions to enable subsequent structure determination.

Understanding how an amino acid sequence folds into a functional, three-dimensional structure has proved to be a formidable challenge in biological research, especially for transmembrane proteins with multiple alpha helical domains. Mechanistic folding studies on helical membrane proteins have been limited to unusually stable, single domain proteins such as bacteriorhodopsin. Here, we extend such work to flexible, multidomain proteins and one of the most widespread membrane transporter families, the major facilitator superfamily, thus showing that more complex membrane proteins can be successfully refolded to recover native substrate binding. We determine the unfolding free energy of the two-domain, Escherichia coli galactose transporter, GalP; a bacterial homologue of human glucose transporters. GalP is reversibly unfolded by urea. Urea causes loss of substrate binding and a significant reduction in alpha helical content. Full recovery of helical structure and substrate binding occurs in dodecylmaltoside micelles, and the unfolding free energy can be determined. A linear dependence of this free energy on urea concentration allows the free energy of unfolding in the absence of urea to be determined as þ2.5 kcal·mol −1 . Urea has often been found to be a poor denaturant for transmembrane helical structures. We attribute the denaturation of GalP helices by urea to the dynamic nature of the transporter structure allowing denaturant access via the substrate binding pocket, as well as to helical structure that extends beyond the membrane. This study gives insight into the final, critical folding step involving recovery of ligand binding for a multidomain membrane transporter.protein folding | thermodynamic stability | linear free-energy relationship

The distribution of chromogranin A and related peptides in rat tissues was investigated using sequence specific antisera. N- and C-terminal antisera and a presumptive C-terminal rat pancreastatin antiserum immunostained an extensive neuroendocrine cell population throughout the gastro-entero-pancreatic tract, anterior pituitary, thyroid and all adrenomedullary cells. However, mid- to C-terminal antisera immunostained a subpopulation of chromogranin A positive cells. Most notable of these was with the KELTAE antiserum (R635.1) which immunostained discrete clusters of adrenomedullary cells and antiserum A87A which immunostained a subpopulation of cells in the anterior pituitary and throughout the gastrointestinal tract. The present study has demonstrated the widespread occurrence of chromogranin A and related peptides in rat neuroendocrine tissues and provides evidence of tissue and cell specific processing.

Two-dimensional gel-electrophoretic analysis combined with fluorography and densitometric quantification was used to examine the effects of glucose on the biosynthesis of rat pancreatic islet proteins. An increase in the medium glucose concentration from 2.8 to 16.7 mm produced a 10-20-fold stimulation in the synthesis of 10 out of 260 detected islet proteins, as judged by incorporation of [35S]methionine during a 20 min incubation. The synthetic rates of the majority of the remaining proteins were stimulated by 2-4-fold. Greater resolution achieved by pulse-chase labelling and subcellular fractionation showed that, of 32 major proteins localized to insulin secretory granules, the biosynthesis of 25 were stimulated 15-30-fold by glucose. By contrast, only eight of 160 proteins in the soluble fraction showed a response of similar magnitude. It is concluded that there is a major and co-ordinated activation of the biosyntheses of proteins destined for secretory granules, which most likely occurs at the level of translational initiation and signal-recognitionparticle-mediated translocation into the endoplasmic reticulum lumen. However, it is clear that not all granule proteins, or the majority of proteins translocated across the endoplasmic reticulum membrane, are affected in an equivalent manner. In addition, the synthesis of a small number of cytosolic proteins may be increased markedly by insulinotropic stimuli.