Published in

National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 39(110), 2013

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1311244110

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Functional role of oligomerization for bacterial and plant SWEET sugar transporter family

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Significance SWEET sugar transporter homologs from bacteria were identified and named SemiSWEETs. They are small proteins with only three transmembrane domains (TMs); they are too small to create pores by themselves, but likely, they assemble multiple 3-TMs into a complex. SemiSWEETs are related to SWEETs, which play important roles in intercellular and interorgan sugar translocation in plants, and they are found in animals. SWEETs have fused two 3-TM units through a linker. However, SWEETs seem to be too small to transport sugars on their own. Here, we show that SWEET function requires assembly into oligomers, indicating that a pore requires at least an SWEET dimer.