Understanding the Interplay Between Membrane Curvature and Conformational States in ABC transporters

ABC-transporters is a superfamily of membrane proteins that are expressed in prokaryotes and eukaryotes. One of the most studied ABC transporters is P-glycoprotein (Pgp). Pgp remove chemotherapy drugs from inside the cancer cell. Therefore, higher concentrations of toxic chemotherapy drugs are needed to kill cancer cells. This has an adverse effect: cancer cells develop resistance the longer the patient undergoes chemotherapy treatment, and chemotherapy will eventually not be effective. This phenomenon is called multidrug resistance (MDR) and the mechanisms that leads MDR remain unclear. A similar behavior is present also for the bacterial multidrug resistance ABC (BmrA), who plays a key role in infectious diseases and resistance to antibiotics.
In this project, we aimed to investigate the physical properties of the membrane curvature for the ABC transporters BmrA and Pgp. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

Peter Tieleman

Student:

Partner:

Université Pierre et Marie Curie

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Education

University:

University of Calgary

Program: