Transport system specificity

The movement of electrons through the electron carrying proteins of the inner mitochondrial membrane is shown in Figure 15.9. Also shown are inhibitors of electron movement at their point of action and the sites where artificial electron acceptors can accept electrons from the electron transport system. Specific inhibitors shown in Figure 15.9 are rotenone, amytal, antimycin A, cyanide, azide, and carbon monoxide. The artificial electron acceptors are methylene blue, phenazine methosulfate, 2,6-indophenol, tetramethyl-p-phenylene diamine, and ferricyanide. 

Biochemically, most quaternary ammonium compounds function as receptor-specific mediators. Because of their hydrophilic nature, small molecule quaternaries caimot penetrate the alkyl region of bdayer membranes and must activate receptors located at the cell surface. Quaternary ammonium compounds also function biochemically as messengers, which are generated at the inner surface of a plasma membrane or in a cytoplasm in response to a signal. They may also be transferred through the membrane by an active transport system. 

Passive diffusion is the simplest transport process. In passive diffusion, the transported species moves across the membrane in the thermodynamically favored direction without the help of any specific transport system/molecule. For an uncharged molecule, passive diffusion is an entropic process, in which movement of molecules across the membrane proceeds until the concentration of the substance on both sides of the membrane is the same. For an uncharged molecule, the free energy difference between side 1 and side 2 of a membrane (Figure 10.1) is given by... 

In mimicking this type of function, noncyclic artificial carboxylic ionophores having two terminal groups of hydroxyl and carboxylic acid moieties were synthesized and the selective transport of alkali metal cations were examined by Yamazaki et al. 9 10). Noncyclic polyethers take on a pseudo-cyclic structure when coordinating cations and so it is possible to achieve the desired selectivity for specific cations by adjusting the length of the polyether chain 2). However, they were not able to observe any relationship between the selectivity and the structure of the host molecules in an active transport system using ionophores 1-3 10). (Table 1)... 

Anyway, it is clear that the fmdings obtained in these artificial transport systems do contribute to the understanding of biological phenomena and point the way to possible practical applications, such as the separation of ions. Accordingly, the development of synthetic ionophores which possess high selectivity for specific cations is expected to gain importance in the future. 

Furthermore, if the antibiotic passes membranes through a specific port of entry, its mutational loss leads to resistance. The lack of the outer membrane protein OprD in P. aeruginosa causes resistance to the (3-lactam antibiotic imipenem. Fosfomycin passes the cytoplasmic membrane via an L-a-glycerol phosphate permease. This transport system is not essential for bacterial growth and therefore mutants with a reduced expression are frequently selected under therapy. 

Molecules that cannot pass freely through the lipid bilayer membrane by themselves do so in association with carrier proteins. This involves two processes— facilitated dififrision and active transport—and highly specific transport systems. 

In the sarcoplasm of resting muscle, the concentration of Ca + is 10 to 10 mol/L. The resting state is achieved because Ca + is pumped into the sarcoplasmic reticulum through the action of an active transport system, called the Ca + ATPase (Figure 49-8), initiating relaxation. The sarcoplasmic reticulum is a network of fine membranous sacs. Inside the sarcoplasmic reticulum, Ca + is bound to a specific Ca -binding protein designated calsequestrin. The sarcomere is surrounded by an excitable membrane (the T tubule system) composed of transverse (T) channels closely associated with the sarcoplasmic reticulum. 

When the new term permease was coined to designate bacterial membrane proteins specialized in the transport of specific metabolites [1,2], it covered a concept which was not quite new. The existence of membrane transport systems had been demonstrated in animal tissues by Cori as early as 1925 (see [3]). However, the discovery and characterization of permeases in bacteria revolutionized prospects for studying the properties of transport systems, opening the way to a new field and a very fruitful methodology. 

A rather satisfactory explanation of the irreversibility of amino acid accumulation in yeast cells is that it might result from specific regulatory mechanisms capable of immobilizing the transporters in a closed position. Uptake of amino acids by a number of permeases does indeed appear to be regulated by specific, and possibly allosteric, feedback inhibition. This idea is based on the fact that a number of transport systems seem to be specifically inhibited by their internally accumulated... 

Schleissner C, ER Olivera, M Eernandez-Valverde, M Luengo (1994) Aerobic catabolism of phenylacetic acid in Pseudomonas putida U biochemical characterization of a specific phenylacetic acid transport system and formal demonstration that phenylacetyl-coenzyme A is a catabolic intermediate. J Bacterial 176 7667-7676. 

Attention has been directed to the dechlorination of polychlorinated benzenes by strains that use them as an energy source by dehalorespiration. Investigations using Dahalococcoides sp. strain CBDBl have shown its ability to dechlorinate congeners with three or more chlorine substituents (Holscher et al. 2003). Although there are minor pathways, the major one for hexachlorobenzene was successive reductive dechlorination to pentachlorobenzene, 1,2,4,5-tetrachlorobenzene, 1,2,4-trichlorobenzene, and 1,4-dichlorobenzene (Jayachandran et al. 2003). The electron transport system has been examined by the use of specific inhibitors. lonophores had no effect on dechlorination, whereas the ATP-synthase inhibitor A,A -dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (DCCD) was strongly inhibitory (Jayachandran et al. 2004). 

The water content of a natural gas is a crucial parameter for the formation of gas hydrates, at least in transporting systems. Clearly a water-free gas may not be able to form gas hydrates. Natural gas contains water in the range of 8000 to 10,000 ppm (by volume). Specifications for pipelining restrict the water content to 120 to 160 ppm. The reasons for this limitation are not only the risk of hydrate formation, but also potential corrosion problems. Therefore drying of a wet gas is essential. 

Depending on the ability of specific transport systems to utilize the predominant metal chelates present in the soil solution, competition may occur between plants and microorganisms and between different types of microorganisms for available iron. This has been particularly well studied for Pseudomonas sp., which produce highly unique iron chelators that are utilized in a strain specific manner but which also retain the ability to use more generic siderophores pro-... 

Finding 2 No specific strategies, approaches, or procedures have been developed to defend the U.S. air transportation system against chemical/biological attacks. 

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