P-glycoprotein (P-gp) is an energy-dependent multidrug efflux pump conferring resistance to cancer chemotherapy. Characterization of the mechanism of drug transport at a molecular level represents an important prerequisite for the design of pump inhibitors, which resensitize cancer cells to standard chemotherapy. In addition, P-glycoprotein plays an important role for early absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and toxicity profiling in drug development. A set of propafenonetype substrate photoaffinity ligands has been used in this study in conjunction with matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization timeof-flight mass spectrometry to define the substrate binding domain(s) of P-gp in more detail. The highest labeling was observed in transmembrane segments 3, 5, 8, and 11. A homology model for P-gp was generated on the basis of the dimeric crystal structure of Vibrio cholerae MsbA, an essential lipid transporter. Thereafter, the labeling pattern was projected onto the 3D atomic-detail model of P-gp to allow a visualization of the binding domain(s). Labeling is predicted by the model to occur at the two transmembrane domain/transmembrane domain interfaces formed between the amino-and carboxyl-terminal half of P-gp. These interfaces are formed by transmembrane (TM) segments 3 and 11 on one hand and TM segments 5 and 8 on the other hand. Available data on LmrA and AcrB, two bacterial multidrug efflux pumps, suggest that binding at domain interfaces may be a general feature of polyspecific drug efflux pumps.Multidrug resistance represents a serious obstacle to successful cancer chemotherapy. Although multifactorial in etiology, one type of multidrug resistance is associated with the overexpression of energy-dependent membrane-bound pumps, which intercept and efflux drugs before they reach their intracellular target structures. P-glycoprotein (ABCB1) represents a paradigm ATP-dependent efflux pump expressed in human cancer cells. In addition to its expression in cancer cells, P-gp is also physiologically expressed in a number of tissues such as intestinal epithelial cells, at the brush border of renal tubule epithelial cells, the canalicular side of hepatocytes, and in capillary endothelial cells forming the blood-brain barrier. It thus interferes with oral drug absorption and drug delivery to the brain, and it enhances renal and biliary excretion. P-gp has therefore attracted considerable attention as a nontarget in the field of drug development, because for a large number of active compounds, interaction with P-glycoprotein might compromise their future development into a drug. Considerable energy has therefore been devoted to the characterization of molecular features that make compounds P-gp substrates and to the definition of the molecular mechanism of drug transport by P-gp. A number of studies have dealt with the kinetics and thermodynamics of the transport process