Mitochondrial transporters, identification

Tonazzi, A., Giangregorio, N., Indiveri, C. and Palmieri, F. 2005. Identification by site-directed mutagenesis and chemical modification of three vicinal cysteine residues in rat mitochondrial camitine/acylcarnitine transporter. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 280 19607-19612. 

Lee, E.-W., Lai, Y, Zhang, H. and Unadkat, J.D. (2006) Identification of the mitochondrial targeting signal of the human equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 (hENTl) Implications for interspecies differences in mitochondrial toxicity of fialuridine. The Journal of Biologiccd Chemistry, 281 (24), 16700-16706. 

During the 1940s, when it had become clear that formation of ATP in mitochondria was coupled to electron transport, the first attempts to pick the system apart and understand the molecular mechanism began. This effort led to the identification and at least partial characterization of several flavoproteins, iron-sulfur centers, ubiquinones, and cytochromes, most of which have been described in Chapters 15 and 16. It also led to the picture of mitochondrial electron transport shown in Fig. 10-5 and which has been drawn in a modem form in Fig. 18-5. 

Krishnamurthy PC, Du G, Fukuda Y, Sun D, Sampath J, Mercer KE, Wang J, Sosa-Pineda B, Murti KG, Schuetz JD. Identification of a mammalian mitochondrial porphyrin transporter. Nature 2006 443 586-589. 

A number of workers have been able to isolate a protein, covalently linked to radioactive Af-ethylmaleimide, identified as the mitochondrial phosphate transporter [122,193-196]. The isolation and identification of the transporter was based for the most part on the maleimide and mersalyl reactivity of the protein. The molecular weight of the protein isolated from different sources varies from 27000 to 34000. Because of the covalent linkage to the irreversible inhibitor, reconstitution of transport was not feasible. 

Lee E-W, Lai Y, Zhang H, Unadkat JD. Identification of the mitochondrial targeting signal of the human equilibrative nucleoside transporter 1 (hENTl) implications... 

Palmieri, L., Villa, A. et al (2003) Identification and metabolic role of the mitochondrial aspartate-glutamate transporter in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. 

The cytochromes plays a major role as electron carriers in the respiratory chain, as well as taking part in photosynthetic reactions in green plants, algae, and anaerobic photosynthetic bacteria A comprehensive survey of their occurrence, properties, structure, and function has been presented by Lemberg and Barrett (1973). ESR continues to play an important role in the identification of mitochondrial cytochromes (Kilpatrick and Erecinska, 1977), and delineating events in bacterial and plant photosynthesis (Prince et a/., 1978). The role played by the cytochromes of higher plants and algae in photosynthetic electron transport has been reviewed recently (Knaf 1978). The present work deals with some recent developments in the properties of those cytochromes where ESR information has accumulated. 

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