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Updated: Aug 3, 2026

Characterization of Membrane Transporters by Heterologous Expression in E. coli and Production of Membrane Vesicles
Published on: December 31, 2019
Proper insertion of a complex membrane protein in the absence of its amino-terminal export signal
1Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115.
Abstract:
The MalF protein spans the Escherichia coli cytoplasmic membrane eight times. Deletion of the first transmembrane stretch of MalF, which acts as an export signal, results in a truncated protein that still exhibits high levels of maltose transport activity. These and additional results indicate that the orientation of a membrane protein is not determined by the amino-terminal export signal, topological information is distributed throughout the MalF protein, and insertion of a protein into the cytoplasmic membrane can occur nonsequentially.
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