Transport Proteins for Microbial Adaptations

Dear Colleagues,

Transmembrane transport has been essential to control ion gradients, osmolarity, influx and efflux of nutrient or toxic substances, right from the beginnings of cellular life on Earth. The microorganisms living today have evolved a wide spectrum of active transport systems that cost energetically to the cells but are often vital for reproductive success in various natural or symbiotic environments. Some of these systems, like the bacterial sugar-transporting phosphotransferase systems, multi-subunit ATP-binding cassette transporters, light-driven ion pumps, ion-translocating decarboxylases, thermophilic and extremophilic transport proteins, are unique or almost unique to prokaryotic microorganisms. Some are important for the exchange of metabolites in symbiotic consortia like the gut microbiome or the rhizosphere. Others are associated with endosymbiotic parasitism. The realm of transporter functions and specificities in the microbial transportomes is far from having been explored thoroughly to date. Also, the molecular underpinnings of different substrate specificities especially in secondary active transporters often remain elusive, due to the multitude of homologs and scarcity of structure-functional studies on many transporter families. In this Special Issue, we aim to collect original research or review articles discussing aspects of the evolution of transporter specificities associated with adaptations in bacteria, archaea, protists or fungi. We would like to dedicate this Special Issue to H. Ronald Kaback (1936-2019), whose seminal work on lac permease shaped the academic life of so many researchers in the field of active membrane transport.   

Prof. Dr. Stathis Frillingos
Dr. Maria Botou
Guest Editors

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