Local-global conformational coupling in a heptahelical membrane protein: Transport mechanism from crystal structures of the nine states in the bacteriorhodopsin photocycle

Proton pumps utilize a chemical or photochemical reaction to create pH and electrical gradients between the interior and the exterior of cells and organelles that energize ATP synthesis and the accumulation and extrusion of solutes and ions. G-protein coupled receptors bind agonists and assume signaling states that communicate with the coupled transducers. How these two kinds of proteins convert chemical potential to a proton transmembrane electrochemical potential or a signal are the great questions in structural membrane biology, and they may have a common answer. Bacteriorhodopsin, a particularly simple integral membrane protein, functions as a proton pump but has a heptahelical structure like membrane receptors. Crystallographic structures are now available for all of the intermediates of the bacteriorhodopsin transport cycle, and they describe the proton translocation mechanism, step by step and in atomic detail. The results show how local conformational changes propagate upon the gradual relaxation of the initially twisted photoisomerized retinal toward the two membrane surfaces. Such local-global conformational coupling between the ligand-binding site and the distant regions of the protein may be the shared mechanism of ion pumps and G-protein related receptors.