Alexander Krah, Roland G. Huber, Ulrich Zachariae, Peter J. Bond, On the ion coupling mechanism of the MATE transporter ClbM, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta (BBA) - Biomembranes, Volume 1862, Issue 2, 2020, 183137, ISSN 0005-2736, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbamem.2019.183137.
Abstract:
Bacteria use a number of mechanisms to defend themselves from antimicrobial drugs. One important defense strategy is the ability to export drugs by multidrug transporters. One class of multidrug transporter, the so-called multidrug and toxic compound extrusion (MATE) transporters, extrude a variety of antibiotic compounds from the bacterial cytoplasm. These MATE transporters are driven by a Na+, H+, or combined Na+/H+ gradient, and act as antiporters to drive a conformational change in the transporter from the outward to the inward-facing conformation. In the inward-facing conformation, a chemical compound (drug) binds to the protein, resulting in a switch to the opposite conformation, thereby extruding the drug. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we now report the structural basis for Na+ and H+ binding in the dual ion coupled MATE transporter ClbM from Escherichia coli, which is connected to colibactin-induced genotoxicity, yielding novel insights into the ion/drug translocation mechanism of this bacterial transporter.