Outward open conformation of a Major Facilitator Superfamily multidrug/H+ antiporter provides insights into switching mechanism

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

antiporter MdfA from Escherichia coli in an outward open conformation. Comparison with the inward facing (drug binding) state shows that, in addition to the expected change in relative orientations of the N- and C-terminal lobes of the antiporter, the conformation of TM5 is kinked and twisted. In vitro reconstitution experiments demonstrate the importance of selected residues for transport and molecular dynamics simulations are used to gain insights into antiporter switching. With the availability of structures of alternative conformational states, we anticipate that MdfA will serve as a model system for understanding drug efflux in MFS MDR antiporters.