Dynamic structure of membrane-anchored Arf*GTP
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Updated: Jun 11, 2026

Method to Visualize and Analyze Membrane Interacting Proteins by Transmission Electron Microscopy
Published on: March 5, 2017
Yizhou Liu1, Richard A Kahn, James H Prestegard
1Complex Carbohydrate Research Center, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA.
Abstract:
ADP ribosylation factors (Arfs) are N-myristoylated GTP/GDP switch proteins that have key regulatory roles in vesicle transport in eukaryotic cells. ARFs execute their roles by anchoring to membrane surfaces, where they interact with other proteins to initiate budding and maturation of transport vesicles. However, existing structures of Arf*GTP are limited to nonmyristoylated and truncated forms with impaired membrane binding. We report a high-resolution NMR structure for full-length myristoylated yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) Arf1 in complex with a membrane mimic. The two-domain structure, in which the myristoylated N-terminal helix is separated from the C-terminal domain by a flexible linker, suggests a level of adaptability in binding modes for the myriad of proteins with which Arf interacts and allows predictions of specific lipid binding sites on some of these proteins.
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