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.
