How a membrane protein can move both lipids and ions
Tuesday, March 12, 2019 - 09:00
in Biology & Nature
The TMEM16 family of membrane proteins was hailed as representing the elusive calcium-activated chloride channels. However, the majority of the family members turned out to be scramblases, proteins that shuffle lipids between both sides of a lipid membrane, some also with non-selective ion conductance. A new study on proteins of the TMEM16 family shows what the structures of these proteins reveal about their function.