Yokohama City University, Suehiro 1-7-29, Tsurumi, Yokohama, 230-0045, Japan.
J Mol Med (Berl). 2010 May;88(5):451-8. doi: 10.1007/s00109-010-0600-y. Epub 2010 Mar 9.
Autotransporter proteins are virulence factors associated with a wide variety of diseases caused by pathogenic gram-negative bacteria, and they play a variety of roles in pathogenesis including disabling host defences and mediating colonization. Pertactin, a key component of the whooping cough vaccine, is an autotransporter protein. A large sub-family of the autotransporters carries a trypsin-like protease domain, but these enzymes have different substrates and functions. The unique export process which defines the autotransporter family involves the polypeptide chain C-terminus forming a barrel structure in the bacterial outer membrane, but the role of this barrel in secreting of the N-terminal 'passenger' domain remains very unclear. There are now four published crystal structures of passenger proteins or fragments of them. We have compared these models to catalogue common features and to help predict the structures and functions of other autotransporter proteins such as SepA, which is involved in the pathogenicity of Shigella.
自转运蛋白是与多种由致病性革兰氏阴性菌引起的疾病相关的毒力因子，它们在发病机制中发挥多种作用，包括使宿主防御能力失效和介导定植。百日咳疫苗的关键成分 pertactin 是一种自转运蛋白。自转运蛋白的一个大亚家族携带胰蛋白酶样蛋白酶结构域，但这些酶具有不同的底物和功能。定义自转运家族的独特输出过程涉及多肽链 C 末端在外膜中形成桶状结构，但该桶在分泌 N 末端“载体”结构域中的作用仍不清楚。现在已经发表了四个关于载体蛋白或其片段的晶体结构。我们将这些模型进行了比较，以编目常见特征，并帮助预测其他自转运蛋白（如 SepA）的结构和功能，SepA 参与志贺氏菌的致病性。
