ABC transporter research: going strong 40 years on

Abstract

In most organisms, ABC transporters constitute one of the largest families of membrane proteins. In humans, their functions are diverse and underpin numerous key physiological processes, as well as being causative factors in a number of clinically relevant pathologies. Advances in our understanding of these diseases have come about through combinations of genetic and protein biochemical investigations of these transporters and the power of in vitro and in vivo investigations is helping to develop genotype–phenotype understanding. However, the importance of ABC transporter research goes far beyond human biology; microbial ABC transporters are of great interest in terms of understanding virulence and drug resistance and industrial biotechnology researchers are exploring the potential of prokaryotic ABC exporters to increase the capacity of synthetic biology systems. Plant ABC transporters play important roles in transport of hormones, xenobiotics, metals and secondary metabolites, pathogen responses and numerous aspects of development, all of which are important in the global food security area. For 3 days in Chester, this Biochemical Society Focused Meeting brought together researchers with diverse experimental approaches and with different fundamental questions, all of which are linked by the commonality of ABC transporters.

Mapping the membrane proteome of anaerobic gut fungi identifies a wealth of carbohydrate binding proteins and transporters

“…Here each transcript was counted only once, and as a consequence the assignment of these classes is not exhaustive. For example, manual inspection reveals that a number of the ‘Catalysis’ proteins (proteins that have a GO-term ending with ‘-ase’) are transporters that hydrolyze ATP as part of the transport process, and similarly Receptor Tyrosine Kinases are known to have major functions in cellular signaling and sensing [30, 31]. Likewise, although the ‘Other’ category contains proteins that have ‘other functions’ such as adhesion proteins and chaperones, this class also contains a number of transporters and receptors.…”

“…Although ABC transporters as such are abundant in all kingdoms of life, SBP-coupled ABC uptake-systems have to date only been found in prokaryotes [59, 60]. Typically, these modular transport systems consist of two cytoplasmic nucleotide-binding domains, two transmembrane domains, and an extracellular SBP encoded on up to four different polypeptides [30, 60] (Fig. 5a).…”

Molecular Mimics of Classic P-Glycoprotein Inhibitors as Multidrug Resistance Suppressors and Their Synergistic Effect on Paclitaxel

“…The field of discovery of novel MDR modulators is anywhere but near closure [27]. In as much as MDR poses such disastrous failures in chemotherapy and hence, mortality, efforts must continue to discover improved MDR suppressors.…”

Crystal structure of the human sterol transporter ABCG5/ABCG8

“…ABC transporters constitute a ubiquitous protein superfamily that utilizes energy derived from ATP hydrolysis to translocate substrates across membranes 6 . Family members share a common architecture that comprises two transmembrane domains (TMDs) and two nucleotide-binding domains (NBD; specified herein as the contiguous polypeptide domain contributed from each subunit, whereas NBS denotes a composite nucleotide-binding site made up of elements from both subunits).…”