Journal
ELIFE
Volume 3, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELIFE SCIENCES PUBLICATIONS LTD
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.03145
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Funding
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft [DFG-EXEC115]
- Swiss National Science Foundation [31003A_118402, PP00P3_144823]
- German Research Foundation Collaborative Research Centre [DFG-SFB807_TP18]
- Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking Project Translocation [GA_115525]
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
- University of Zurich
- University of Konstanz
- Chinese Scholarship Council [CSC2008101067]
- Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF) [PP00P3_144823] Funding Source: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF)
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Membrane transporters of the RND superfamily confer multidrug resistance to pathogenic bacteria, and are essential for cholesterol metabolism and embryonic development in humans. We use high-resolution X-ray crystallography and computational methods to delineate the mechanism of the homotrimeric RND-type proton/drug antiporter AcrB, the active component of the major efflux system AcrAB-TolC in Escherichia coli, and one most complex and intriguing membrane transporters known to date. Analysis of wildtype AcrB and four functionally-inactive variants reveals an unprecedented mechanism that involves two remote alternating-access conformational cycles within each protomer, namely one for protons in the transmembrane region and another for drugs in the periplasmic domain, 50 angstrom apart. Each of these cycles entails two distinct types of collective motions of two structural repeats, coupled by flanking a-helices that project from the membrane. Moreover, we rationalize how the cross-talk among protomers across the trimerization interface might lead to a more kinetically efficient efflux system.
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