REVIEW: Proton Transport Mechanism of Bacteriorhodopsin as Revealed by Site-Specific Mutagenesis and Protein Sequence Variability

L. S. Brown

Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA; fax: 1-949-824-8540; E-mail: lsbrown@uci.edu

Received January 31, 2001; Revision received May 3, 2001

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A large share of the current ideas about the mechanism of proton transport by bacteriorhodopsin has emerged from studies of site-specific mutants. This review is an attempt to check some of these ideas against the natural variability in the primary structure of the protein.

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KEY WORDS: bacteriorhodopsin, halobacteria, mutations, photocycle, proton transport, conserved residues

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