We used electron cryotomography of mitochondrial membranes from wild-type and mutant Saccharomyces cerevisiae to investigate the structure and organization of ATP synthase dimers in situ. Subtomogram averaging of the dimers to 3.7 nm resolution revealed a V-shaped structure of twofold symmetry, with an angle of 86° between monomers. The central and peripheral stalks are well resolved. The monomers interact within the membrane at the base of the peripheral stalks. In wild-type mitochondria ATP synthase dimers are found in rows along the highly curved cristae ridges, and appear to be crucial for membrane morphology. Strains deficient in the dimer-specific subunits e and g or the first transmembrane helix of subunit 4 lack both dimers and lamellar cristae. Instead, cristae are either absent or balloon-shaped, with ATP synthase monomers distributed randomly in the membrane. Computer simulations indicate that isolated dimers induce a plastic deformation in the lipid bilayer, which is partially relieved by their side-by-side association. We propose that the assembly of ATP synthase dimer rows is driven by the reduction in the membrane elastic energy, rather than by direct protein contacts, and that the dimer rows enable the formation of highly curved ridges in mitochondrial cristae.

Membrane transporters of the RND superfamily confer multidrug resistance to pathogenic bacteria, and are essential for cholesterol metabolism and embryonic development in humans. We use high-resolution X-ray crystallography and computational methods to delineate the mechanism of the homotrimeric RND-type proton/drug antiporter AcrB, the active component of the major efflux system AcrAB-TolC in Escherichia coli, and one most complex and intriguing membrane transporters known to date. Analysis of wildtype AcrB and four functionally-inactive variants reveals an unprecedented mechanism that involves two remote alternating-access conformational cycles within each protomer, namely one for protons in the transmembrane region and another for drugs in the periplasmic domain, 50 Å apart. Each of these cycles entails two distinct types of collective motions of two structural repeats, coupled by flanking α-helices that project from the membrane. Moreover, we rationalize how the cross-talk among protomers across the trimerization interface might lead to a more kinetically efficient efflux system.

We present a novel approach to explore the conformational space of globular proteins near their native state. It combines the advantages of coarse-grained models with those of all-atoms simulations, required to treat molecular recognition processes. The comparison between calculated structural properties with those obtained with all-atoms molecular dynamics simulations establishes the accuracy of the model. Our method has the potential to be extended to molecular recognition processes in systems whose characteristic size and time scale prevent an analysis based on all-atoms molecular dynamics.