{"doi":"10.1101/2021.09.16.460654","title":"Structural transitions permitting ligand entry and exit in bacterial fatty acid binding proteins","abstract":"Abstract Fatty acid (FA) transfer proteins extract FA from membranes and sequester their ligand to facilitate its movement through the cytosol. While detailed views of soluble protein-FA complexes are available, how FA exchange occurs at the membrane has remained unknown. Staphylococcus aureus FakB1 is a prototypical bacterial FA transfer protein that binds palmitate within a narrow, buried tunnel. Here, we determine the conformational change from this closed state to an open state that engages the phospholipid bilayer. Upon membrane binding, a dynamic loop in FakB1 that covers the FA binding site disengages and folds into an amphipathic helix. This helix inserts below the phosphate plane of the bilayer to create a diffusion channel for the FA to exchange between the protein and the membrane. The structure of the bilayer-associated conformation of FakB1 has local similarities with mammalian FA binding proteins and provides a general conceptual framework for how these proteins interact with the membrane to promote lipid transfer.","journal":"bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)","year":2021,"id":221679,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":1,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9508,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":504751,"name":"M.G. Cuypers","orcid":"0000-0002-8826-2317","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":556039,"name":"Christy R. Grace","orcid":"0000-0002-1600-5610","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":295273,"name":"Shashank Pant","orcid":"0000-0002-8222-3616","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":469111,"name":"Chitra Subramanian","orcid":"0000-0002-1325-0514","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":98027,"name":"Emad Tajkhorshid","orcid":"0000-0001-8434-1010","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":469113,"name":"Charles O. Rock","orcid":"0000-0001-8648-4189","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":381385,"name":"Stephen W. White","orcid":"0000-0001-8188-5944","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":821806,"name":"Jessica M. Gullett","orcid":"0000-0003-3996-9110","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":66,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:53:55.215284Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}