In both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells, there are proteins that reside in the plasma membrane which catalyze the export of specific peptides, proteins, and other macromolecules. Similar molecules are located in the membranes that delimit intracellular organelles and appear to mediate the import of polypeptides into these compartments. The dedicated transporters that are responsible for these transmembrane translocation events are all members of a very large superfamily of integral membrane proteins that share extensive sequence similarity and domain organization and also contain a highly conserved motif that confers on these transporters the ability to bind and hydrolyze ATP. Hence, this family of membrane-bound transporters has been called the ATP-binding cassette or “ABC” proteins (Higgins 1992) or the “traffic ATPases” (Ames et al. 1990).
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Kuchler et al. (1992) studied this question.