The structure of porin from Rhodobacter capsulatus at 1.8 A resolution

The structure of the porin from Rhodobacter capsulatus was determined at a resolution of 1.8 A. The analysis started from a closely related crystal structure that had been solved at a medium resolution of 3 A using multiple isomorphous replacement and solvent flattening. The new structure contains the complete sequence of 301 amino acid residues. Refinement of the model is under way; the present R-factor is 22% with good geometry. Except for the lengths of several loops, the resulting chain fold corresponds to the medium resolution model. The membrane channel is lined by a large number of ionogenic side chains with characteristic segregation of differently charged groups.