A2: Membrane Transport Machineries
Coordinators
| Robert Tampé CEF Principal Investigator Institute of Biochemistry Goethe University Frankfurt tampe@em.uni-frankfurt.de | Enrico Schleiff CEF Principal Investigator Institute of Molecular Biosciences Goethe University Frankfurt schleiff@bio.uni-frankfurt.de | |
| Thomas Meier CEF Adjunct Investigator Structural Biology Max-Planck-Institute of Biophysics thomas.meier@mpibp-frankfurt.mpg.de | Martin Pos CEF Investigator Institute of Biochemistry Goethe University Frankfurt pos@em.uni-frankfurt.de |
Researchers involved
| Beate Averhoff Clemens Glaubitz Robert Tampé | Eckhard Boles Werner Kühlbrandt | Bernhard Brutschy Thomas Meier | Volker Dötsch Martin Pos |
Transporters provide the entry and exit sites for solutes and whole proteins in and out of all cells. Organized in complex networks and dynamic assemblies, they control and regulate cellular compartmentalization.
Their molecular architectures range from large macromolecular machineries to oligomeric complexes and monomers, some of which are organized on scaffolding proteins. At present, our knowledge of their oligomeric state, interaction partners, stoichiometry, and dynamic rearrangements is limited.
The structures of some key transport assemblies have been determined in Frankfurt. Within the context of this Cluster we plan to tackle the structure, assembly and trafficking of e.g. MHC class I peptide-loading complexes and the mitochondrial protein translocases TOM and TIM. Numerous techniques for detecting protein interactions in vivo, and for quantifying them in vitro are already in place. The objective for the coming years is to add methods for studying membrane protein interactions, for dissecting multi-protein complexes and for increasing throughput.
AcrB pump of E. coli
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