1.A.22.1.11
Large conductance mechanosensitive channel protein, MscL, of 101 aas and 2 TMSs. When the membrane is stretched, MscL responds to the increase of membrane tension and opens a nonselective pore to about 30 A wide, exhibiting a large unitary conductance of approximately 3 nS. The structures of this archaeal MscL, trapped in the closed and expanded intermediate states, has been solved (Li et al. 2015). The comparative analysis of these two new structures reveals significant conformational rearrangements in the different domains of MscL. The large changes observed in the tilt angles of the two transmembrane helices (TMS1 and TMS2) fit well with the helix-pivoting model. Meanwhile, the periplasmic loop region transforms from a folded structure, containing an omega-shaped loop and a short beta-hairpin, to an extended and partly disordered conformation during channel expansion. Moreover, a significant rotating and sliding of the N-terminal helix (N-helix) is coupled to the tilting movements of TMS1 and TMS2. The dynamic relationships between the N-helix and TMS1/TMS2 suggest that the N-helix serves as a membrane-anchored stopper that limits the tilts of TM1 and TM2 in the gating process (Li et al. 2015). Residues I21-T30 in TMS 1 constitute the hydrophobic gate, and the packing of aromatic rings of F23 in each subunit of Ma-MscL is critical to the hydrophobic gate (Zhang et al. 2021). Hydrophilic substitutions of the other functionally important residues, A22 and G26, modulate channel gating by attenuating the hydrophobicity of the F23 constriction.