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Membrane Transporters

Membrane Transporters

Transporters are essential membrane transport proteins with functions related to cell nutrition, homeostasis, communication, etc. Approximately 7% of all genes in the human genome code for transporters or transporter-related proteins.
Transporters are mainly composed of alpha-helices, built from bundles of ten or more helices traversing the plasma membrane. The solute-binding sites are located midway, where some of the helices are broken or distorted, making space for the binding site through...

The Significance of Membrane Transport

The Significance of Membrane Transport

The transport of solutes across the cell membrane is essential for metabolic processes, like maintaining cell size and volume, generating the action potential, exchanging nutrients and gases, etc. Membrane transport can be either passive or active. It can be simple diffusion, facilitated, or mediated transport aided by transport proteins such as transporters and channels.
Transporters facilitate either an active or passive movement of solutes. They can allow a single-molecule transport down its...

The Significance of Membrane Transport

The Significance of Membrane Transport

The transport of solutes across the cell membrane is essential for metabolic processes, like maintaining cell size and volume, generating the action potential, exchanging nutrients and gases, etc. Membrane transport can be either passive or active. It can be simple diffusion, facilitated, or mediated transport aided by transport proteins such as transporters and channels.
Transporters facilitate either an active or passive movement of solutes. They can allow a single-molecule transport down its...

Facilitated Diffusion

Facilitated Diffusion

The plasma membrane, a critical structure in cellular biology, houses an array of transporters, or carrier proteins, interspersed within its lipid bilayer. These proteins play a crucial role in solute transport through facilitated diffusion, a form of passive diffusion that uses transporters to move the molecules across the membrane.
In this process, substrates such as organic compounds and ions interact with a transporter on one side, triggering conformational changes in proteins that enable...

Active Transport

Active Transport

Active transport is a critical biological process that allows cells to move solutes against an electrochemical gradient. This process requires direct energy input and is characterized by its selectivity, saturability, and susceptibility to competitive inhibition.
Primary active transporters, like Na+, K+ and -ATPase, directly utilize ATP to move ions across the membrane. These transporters play significant roles in various physiological processes. For instance, Na+, K+ and -ATPase maintain...

ABC Transporters: Exporter

ABC Transporters: Exporter

ATP-binding cassette or ABC transporter is the largest superfamily of integral membrane proteins. The transporters have transmembrane-binding domains (TMDs) and nucleotide-binding domains (NBDs). The TMDs are specific to their substrates, whereas the NBDs are similar to engines that complete ATP hydrolysis to complete the substrate transport. They can be full transporters consisting of two TMDs and NBDs, half transporters with one TMD and NBD, while some encoded with a single TMD or NBD are...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 11, 2026

Brain Slice Biotinylation: An Ex Vivo Approach to Measure Region-specific Plasma Membrane Protein Trafficking in Adult Neurons

Brain Slice Biotinylation: An Ex Vivo Approach to Measure Region-specific Plasma Membrane Protein Trafficking in Adult Neurons

Published on: April 3, 2014

Neurotransmitter transporters: structure meets function.

Paul J Focke¹, Xiaoyu Wang, H Peter Larsson

¹Program in Chemical Biology, Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, Oregon Health & Science University, 3181 SW Sam Jackson Park Road, Portland, OR 97239, USA.

Structure (London, England : 1993)

|May 14, 2013

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

This study compares crystal structures of neurotransmitter transporter homologs, GltPh and LeuT, to explain how sodium and substrate binding drives neurotransmitter uptake and transport.

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Expanding the Toolkit for In Vivo Imaging of Axonal Transport

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Published on: December 23, 2021

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Structural Biology
Biochemistry

Background:

Sodium-coupled transporters are crucial for neurotransmitter recycling at synapses.
The precise molecular mechanism of sodium-coupled neurotransmitter uptake remains incompletely understood.
Crystal structures of transporter homologs provide insights into their function.

Purpose of the Study:

To elucidate the molecular mechanism of sodium-coupled neurotransmitter transport.
To compare the structures of GltPh and LeuT to understand conserved transport principles.
To explain the coupled binding of sodium and substrate and their role in transporter gating.

Main Methods:

Comparative analysis of X-ray crystal structures of GltPh and LeuT.
Integration of experimental data and computational simulations.
Structural comparison to homologous neurotransmitter transporters.

Main Results:

Structural comparison reveals conserved features between GltPh and LeuT.
Proposed mechanism for coupled sodium and substrate binding.
Detailed explanation of how ion and substrate binding controls transporter gating.

Conclusions:

The study proposes a unified model for sodium-coupled neurotransmitter transport.
Understanding transporter gating is key to efficient neurotransmitter uptake.
Structural and computational approaches are vital for deciphering transporter mechanisms.