Membrane protein spanning segments as export signals

Escherichia coli lac permease is a polytopic integral membrane protein with six translocated (periplasmic) domains. Individual N-terminal cytoplasmic regions and membrane-spanning segments adjacent to each of the periplasmic domains acted as export signals for an attached sensor protein (alkaline phosphatase). However, the export activity of one of the spanning segments was considerably lower than that of the others, and was limited by the presence of a positively charged residue (Arg302). These observations are compatible with models of membrane protein insertion in which hydrophilic domains are translocated independently. However, the results suggest that efficient translocation may sometimes require interaction between individual spanning segments.