Phospholipid synthesis and translocation by bacterial UPF0104 proteins (A08)

磷脂的生物合成发生在细胞质膜的内小叶，但仍不清楚细菌如何将新合成的磷脂转运到膜的外小叶中。我们确定了一个通用的原核蛋白家族UPF0104以前未知的功能，并证明了它的一些成员，包括大肠杆菌YbhN和金黄色葡萄球菌MprF可以易位磷脂。我们计划表征UPF0104蛋白的特异性、相互作用伙伴、结构和功能作用，以解开细菌细胞包膜合成的一个关键的、基本上未知的过程。

Phospholipid biosynthesis takes place at the inner leaflet of the cytoplasmic membrane but it has remained unclear how bacteria translocate de novo-synthesized phospholipids into the outer leaflet of the membrane. We identified a universal prokaryotic protein family UPF0104 of previously unknown function and demonstrated that some of its members including the Escherichia coli YbhN and the Staphylococcus aureus MprF can translocate phospholipids. We plan to characterize the specificities, interaction partners, structures, and functional roles of UPF0104 proteins to unravel a crucial, largely unknown process of bacterial cell envelope synthesis.