Bilayer lipids contribute to the stability of membrane transporters and are crucially involved in their proper functioning. However, the molecular knowledge of how surrounding lipids affect membrane transport is surprisingly limited and despite its general importance is rarely considered in the molecular description of a transport mechanism. One reason is that only few atomic resolution structures of channels or transporters reveal a functional interaction with lipids, which are difficult to detect in X-ray structures per se. Overcoming these difficulties, we report here on a new structure of the osmotic stressregulated betaine transporter BetP in complex with anionic lipids. This lipid-associated BetP structure is important in the molecular understanding of osmoregulation due to the strong dependence of activity regulation in BetP on the presence of negatively charged lipids. We detected eight resolved palmitoyl-oleoyl phosphatidyl glycerol (PG) lipids mimicking parts of the membrane leaflets and interacting with key residues in transport and regulation. The lipid-protein interactions observed here in structural detail in BetP provide molecular insights into the role of lipids in osmoregulated secondary transport.

The halophilic bacterium Halomonas elongata takes up the compatible solute ectoine via the osmoregulated TRAP transporter TeaABC. A fourth orf (teaD) is located adjacent to the teaABC locus that encodes a putative universal stress protein (USP). By RT-PCR experiments we proved a cotranscription of teaD along with teaABC. Deletion of teaD resulted in an enhanced uptake for ectoine by the transporter TeaABC and hence a negative activity regulation of TeaABC by TeaD. A transcriptional regulation via DNA binding could be excluded. ATP binding to native TeaD was shown by HPLC, and the crystal structure of TeaD was solved in complex with ATP to a resolution of 1.9 A by molecular replacement. TeaD forms a dimer-dimer complex with one ATP molecule bound to each monomer, which has a Rossmann-like alpha/beta overall fold. Our results reveal an ATP-dependent oligomerization of TeaD, which might have a functional role in the regulatory mechanism of TeaD. USP-encoding orfs, which are located adjacent to genes encoding for TeaABC homologues, could be identified in several other organisms, and their physiological role in balancing the internal cellular ectoine pool is discussed.

Bilayer lipids contribute to the stability of membrane transporters and are crucially involved in their proper functioning. However, the molecular knowledge of how surrounding lipids affect membrane transport is surprisingly limited and despite its general importance is rarely considered in the molecular description of a transport mechanism. One reason is that only few atomic resolution structures of channels or transporters reveal a functional interaction with lipids, which are difficult to detect in X-ray structures per se. Overcoming these difficulties, we report here on a new structure of the osmotic stressregulated betaine transporter BetP in complex with anionic lipids. This lipid-associated BetP structure is important in the molecular understanding of osmoregulation due to the strong dependence of activity regulation in BetP on the presence of negatively charged lipids. We detected eight resolved palmitoyl-oleoyl phosphatidyl glycerol (PG) lipids mimicking parts of the membrane leaflets and interacting with key residues in transport and regulation. The lipid-protein interactions observed here in structural detail in BetP provide molecular insights into the role of lipids in osmoregulated secondary transport.

No abstract

Betaine is an important osmolyte and is, compared with other organs, much more abundant in the kidneys, where it enters cells in the medulla by betaine-GABA transporter 1 (BGT1) to balance osmoregulation in the countercurrent system. In wild-type (wt-)BGT1-expressing oocytes, GABA-mediated currents were diminished by preincubation of oocytes with 100 nM PMA or 5 μM dioctanoyl-sn-glycerol, activators of PKC, whereas the application of staurosporine before the application of dioctanoyl-sn-glycerol restored the response to GABA. Four potential phosphorylation sites on BGT1 were mutated to alanine by site-directed mutagenesis. Three mutants (T235A, S428A, and S564A) evoked GABA currents comparable in magnitude to currents observed in wt-BGT1-expressing oocytes, whereas GABA currents in T40A were barely detectable. Uptake of [(3)H]GABA was also determined in human embryonic kidney-293 cells expressing enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP)-tagged BGT1 with the same mutations. T235A, S428A, and S564A showed upregulation of GABA uptake after hypertonic stress and downregulation by PMA similar to EGFP-wt-BGT1. In contrast, T40A did not respond to either hypertonicity or PMA. Confocal microscopy of the EGFP-BGT1 mutants expressed in Madin-Darby canine kidney cells revealed that T40A was present in the cytoplasm after 24 h of hypertonic stress. whereas the other mutants and EGFP-wt-BGT1 were in the plasma membrane. All mutants, including T40A, comigrated with wt-BGT1 on Western blots, suggesting that they are full-length proteins. T40A, however, cannot be phosphorylated, as revealed using a specific anti-phosphoantibody, and, therefore, T40 may be important for the trafficking and insertion of BGT1 in the plasma membrane.