Biophysicists from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands have visualized a nearly complete transport cycle of the mammalian glutamate transporter homologue from archaea. They confirmed that the transport mechanism resembles that of an elevator: A “door” opens, ions and substrate molecules come in, the door closes, and they travel through the membrane. Presumably the mammalian transporters operate the same way, so this discovery is potentially important for developing new treatments for schizophrenia and other mental illnesses caused by malfunctioning of these transporters. The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.
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Source: Phys.org