title: Protein transport by the bacterial Tat pathway.
abstract: The twin-arginine translocation (Tat) system accomplishes the remarkable feat of translocating large - even dimeric - proteins across tightly sealed energy-transducing membranes. All of the available evidence indicates that it is unique in terms of both structure and mechanism; however its very nature has hindered efforts to probe the core translocation events. At the heart of the problem is the fact that two large sub-complexes are believed to coalesce to form the active translocon, and 'capturing' this translocation event has been too difficult. Nevertheless, studies on the individual components have come a long way in recent years, and structural studies have reached the point where educated guesses can be made concerning the most interesting aspects of Tat. In this article we review these studies and the emerging ideas in this field. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: Protein trafficking and secretion in bacteria. Guest Editors: Anastassios Economou and Ross Dalbey.
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Roshani
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Patel
authors.affiliation: School of Life Sciences, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Sarah M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Centre for Molecular Processing, School of Biosciences, University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NJ, United Kingdom. Electronic address: c.robinson-504@kent.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Colin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Robinson
mesh_terms: D001120:Arginine / Q000737:chemistry / Q000378:metabolism; D018988:Bacterial Translocation; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics; D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D017510:Protein Folding; D021382:Protein Sorting Signals / Q000235:genetics*; D021381:Protein Transport / Q000235:genetics*; D015398:Signal Transduction / Q000235:genetics*
chemical_list: D029968:Escherichia coli Proteins; D026901:Membrane Transport Proteins; D021382:Protein Sorting Signals; C408585:twin-arginine translocase complex, E coli; D001120:Arginine
keywords: Protein secretion; Secretory pathway; Signal peptide; Tat; Twin arginine