Divide and conquer: processive transport enables multidrug transporters to tackle challenging drugs

• Main Authors: Nir Fluman, Eitan Bibi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Shared Science Publishers OG 2014-09-01
• Series: Microbial Cell
• Subjects: multidrug resistance; multidrug transport; MdfA; dequalinium; antibiotics; secondary transport; drug-proton exchange
• Online Access: http://microbialcell.com/researcharticles/divide-and-conquer-processive-transport-enables-multidrug-transporters-to-tackle-challenging-drugs/

Multidrug transporters are membrane proteins that catalyze efflux of antibiotics and other toxic compounds from cells, thereby conferring drug resistance on various organisms. Unlike most solute transporters that transport a single type of compound or similar analogues, multidrug transporters are extremely promiscuous. They transport a broad spectrum of dissimilar drugs and represent a serious obstacle to antimicrobial or anticancer chemotherapy. Many challenging aspects of multidrug transporters, which are unique, have been studied in detail, including their ability to interact with chemically unrelated drugs, and how they utilize energy to drive efflux of compounds that are not only structurally but electrically different. A new and surprising dimension of the promiscuous nature of multidrug transporters has been described recently: they can move long molecules through the membrane in a processive manner.