Membrane Proteins with β-Barrel Fold

Authors

  • Tilman Schirmer Division of Structural Biology, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Klingelbergstr. 70, CH-4056 Basel

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.2533/chimia.2001.493

Keywords:

Membrane protein, Porin, Protein crystallography, Simulation

Abstract

Porins, the major proteins found in the bacterial outer membrane, exhibit an unusual hollow β-barrel structure. This motif constitutes the scaffold for a pore that facilitates the diffusion of solutes across the membrane. OmpF porin was the first membrane protein to be crystallized many years ago at the Biozentrum in Basel. Since then a wealth of structural information at high resolution has been acquired by X-ray crystallography. Porins from E. coli turned out to be extremely robust and easy to manipulate, allowing detailed and comprehensive structure-function analysis. In particular, insight was obtained into the role of the highly charged pore constriction in OmpF porin and the 'greasy slide', a string of aromatic residues, in maltoporin.

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Published

2001-06-27