Lipopolysaccharide Transport and Assembly at the Outer Membrane: the PEZ Model

Overview

Journal Nat Rev Microbiol

Specialties Infectious Diseases
Microbiology

Date 2016 Mar 31

PMID 27026255

Citations 182

Authors

Suguru Okuda

David J Sherman

Thomas J Silhavy

Natividad Ruiz

Daniel Kahne

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Gram-negative bacteria have a double-membrane cellular envelope that enables them to colonize harsh environments and prevents the entry of many clinically available antibiotics. A main component of most outer membranes is lipopolysaccharide (LPS), a glycolipid containing several fatty acyl chains and up to hundreds of sugars that is synthesized in the cytoplasm. In the past two decades, the proteins that are responsible for transporting LPS across the cellular envelope and assembling it at the cell surface in Escherichia coli have been identified, but it remains unclear how they function. In this Review, we discuss recent advances in this area and present a model that explains how energy from the cytoplasm is used to power LPS transport across the cellular envelope to the cell surface.

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