Autotransporter proteins are defined by the ability to drive their own secretion across the bacterial outer membrane. The Hia autotransporter of Haemophilus influenzae belongs to the trimeric autotransporter subfamily and mediates bacterial adhesion to the respiratory epithelium. In this report, we present the crystal structure of the C-terminal end of Hia, corresponding to the entire Hia trans...

• The heavy subunits (molecular mass of ~90 and ~80 kDa for rBAT and 4F2hc, respectively) are type II membrane N-glycoproteins with a single transmembrane domain, an intracellular NH2 terminus, and an extracellular COOH terminus significantly homologous to insect and bacterial glucosidases (FIGURE 1). Recently, X-ray diffraction of the extracellular domain of human 4F2hc revealed a three-dimens...

Cyclophilin38 (CYP38) is one of the highly divergent cyclophilins from Arabidopsis thaliana. Here, we report the crystal structure of the At-CYP38 protein (residues 83 to 437 of 437 amino acids) at 2.39-Å resolution. The structure reveals two distinct domains: an N-terminal helical bundle and a C-terminal cyclophilin β-barrel, connected by an acidic loop. Two N-terminal β-strands become part of...

β-barrel membrane proteins are composed of multiple antiparallel β-strands and form pores in the outer membranes of endosymbiotic organelles like mitochondria and the evolutionary related Gramnegative bacteria. These β-barrel channels are crucial for signal transduction, metabolite transport, and protein translocation. How are β-barrel membrane proteins assembled into the outer membrane? After ...

In the present study, the effect of NBM lesion on the temporal characteristics of response integration evoked by multiple whisker stimulations in the barrel cortex of rats was studied. Nucleus basalis of Meynert (NBM) projects to widespread areas of the cortex and provides the major cholinergic input (80%) to the cerebral cortex. In this study we examined the effects of NBM lesion on the respon...

β-Barrel membrane proteins are found in the outer membrane of gram-negative bacteria, mitochondria, and chloroplasts. They are important for pore formation, membrane anchoring, and enzyme activity. These proteins are also often responsible for bacterial virulence. Due to difficulties in experimental structure determination, they are sparsely represented in the protein structure databank. We hav...

Mitochondria contain two membranes, the outer membrane and the inner membrane with folded cristae. The mitochondrial inner membrane organizing system (MINOS) is a large protein complex required for maintaining inner membrane architecture. MINOS interacts with both preprotein transport machineries of the outer membrane, the translocase of the outer membrane (TOM) and the sorting and assembly mac...

Transmembrane β-barrels (TMBs) carry out major functions in substrate transport and protein biogenesis but experimental determination of their 3D structure is challenging. Encouraged by successful de novo 3D structure prediction of globular and α-helical membrane proteins from sequence alignments alone, we developed an approach to predict the 3D structure of TMBs. The approach combines the maxi...

In the present study, the effect of NBM lesion on the temporal characteristics of response integration evoked by multiple whisker stimulations in the barrel cortex of rats was studied. Nucleus basalis of Meynert (NBM) projects to widespread areas of the cortex and provides the major cholinergic input (80%) to the cerebral cortex. In this study we examined the effects of NBM lesion on the respon...