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2.A.29 The Mitochondrial Carrier (MC) Family

Permeases of the MC family (the human SLC25 family) possess six transmembrane β-helical spanners. The proteins are of fairly uniform size of about 300 residues. They arose by tandem intragenic triplication in which a genetic element encoding two spanners gave rise to one encoding six spanners. This event may have occurred less than 2 billion years ago when mitochondria first developed their specialized endosymbiotic functions within eukaryotic cells. Members of the family are found exclusively in eukaryotic organelles although they are nuclearly encoded. Most are found in mitochondria, but some are found in peroxisomes of animals, in hydrogenosomes of anaerobic fungi, and in amyloplasts of plants. Members of the MC family are functional and structural monomers although early reports indicated that they are dimers (Bamber et al., 2006, 2007). Many of them preferentially catalyze the exchange of one solute for another (antiport). Fifteen paralogues of the MC family are encoded within the genome of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Fifty have been identified in humans. 58 in A. thaliana and 35 in S. cerevisiae. The functions of two thirds of the human homologues are unknown, but most of the yeast homologues have been functionally identified. Functional aspects have been reviewed by Palmieri (2004) and Palmieri et al. (2006), and diseases caused by defects of mitochondrial carriers are reviewed by Palmieri et al. (2008).

The high resolution 3-D structure of the human homologues one MC family member, the bovine ATP/ADP antiporter (TC #2.A.29.1.1), has been solved by x-ray crystallography to 2.2 Å resolution (Pebay-Peyroula et al., 2003; Klingenberg et al., 2008)). The carrier was crystalized in complexation with the inhibitor, carboxyatractyloside. The six TMSs (with the N- and C-termini normally facing the cytoplasmic side of the membrane and the three hairpin loops of the repeat sequences facing the matrix) form a compact barrel domain which shows a deep cone-shaped depression at the surface facing the intermembrane space. At its base was found the signature sequence of these nucleotide carriers (R R R M M M). The cavity has a maximal diameter of 20 Å and a depth of 30 Å. The fold of the three repeat elements is very similar. Each odd-numbered helix exhibits a sharp kink, due to a conserved prolyl residue located in the conserved P X(D/E) X X (K/R) motif, characteristic of all mitochondrial carriers. The even-numbered helices pass straight through the membrane without a kink. The structure reveals large hydrophilic surfaces in the interior of the conical pit, due to the weak hydrophobicities of these proteins. A positive electrostatic surface potential on the matrix side and at the bottom of the pit provides the force for anionic substrate binding. Two lipid molecules, both cardiolipin molecules, are tightly bound to the carrier.

The transport substrates of MC family members may bind to the bottom of the cavity, and translocation results in a transient transition from a 'pit' to a 'channel' conformation (Kunji and Robinson, 2006; Robinson and Kunji, 2006). The inhibitor, carboxyatractyloside, probably binds where ADP binds, in the pit on the outer surface, thus blocking the transport cycle. Another inhibitor, bongkrekic acid, is believed to stabilize a second conformation, with the pit facing the matrix. In this conformation, the inhibitor may bind to the ATP-binding site. Functional and structural roles for residues in the TMSs have been proposed (Cappello et al., 2006, 2007). The mitochondrial carrier signature, Px[D/E]xx[K/R], of carriers is probably involved both in the biogenesis and in the transport activity of these proteins (Zara et al., 2007). A homologue has been identified in the mimivirus genome and shown to be a transporter for dATP and dTTP (Monné et al., 2007).

One of the MC family members, the uncoupling protein, UCP1 (TC# 2.A.29.3.1), functions to dissipate the proton motive force, thereby generating heat. This protein has been shown to be capable of transporting fatty acids, long chain alkylsulfonates and chloride. It is believed to allow transport of protons down their electrochemical gradient in a cyclic, fatty acid-dependent process by first exporting fatty acyl anions and then allow the free diffusion of the protonated fatty acid across the bilayer into the mitochondrion. UNC1 is therfore probably an anion translocator that may not require that transport occurs by an antiport mechanism. The fatty acid behaves as a cycling protonophore (Garlid et al., 2000). UNC1 uses coenzyme Q (ubiquinone) as a cofactor (Echtay et al., 2000). Like many other MC family members, uncoupling proteins are found in the mitochondria of plants as well as animals. Various compounds such as the reactive aldehyde (produced under oxidative stress conditions), 4-hydroxy-2-nonenal, as well as trans-retinal and other 2-alkenals activate uncoupling via UCP1-3 (TC #2.A.29.3.1) as well as the ATP/ADP antiporter (TC #2.A.29.1.1) (Echtay et al., 2003).

Mitochondrial transporters have 3 homologous repeats and a structure with pseudosymmetry. Each repeat is folded into 2 transmembrane α-helices linked by a short α-helix on the matrix side and contains the signature motif PX[DE]XX[RK]. The proline residues kink the odd-numbered transmembrane α-helices, and the charged residues form a salt-bridge network connecting the C-terminal ends of the transmembrane α-helices, closing the transporter on the matrix side. During the transport cycle, the carriers form states in which the substrate-binding state of the carrier is open to the mitochrondrial intermembrane space and matrix, respectively. According to the single binding center-gating pore mechanism, interconversion of the 2 conformational states via a transition intermediate leads to substrate translocation. In the cytoplasmic state, a central substrate-binding site has been identified by applying chemical and distance constraints to comparative models. The substrates bind to 3 major sites on the even-numbered α-helices, which are related by symmetry and located approximately in the middle of the membrane. Yeast ADP/ATP carriers function as monomers (Bamberg et al., 2007).

Residues that are important for the transport mechanism are likely to be symmetrical, whereas residues involved in substrate binding will be asymmetrical reflecting the asymmetry of the substrates. By scoring the symmetry of residues in the sequence repeats, Robinson et al. (2008) identified the substrate-binding sites and salt bridge networks that are important for transport. The symmetry analyses provides an assessment of the role of residues and provides clues to the chemical identities of substrates of uncharacterized transporters.

The mitochondrion is one of the defining characteristics of eukaryotic cells, and to date, no eukaryotic lineage has been shown to have lost mitochondria entirely. In certain anaerobic or microaerophilic lineages, however, the mitochondrion has become severely reduced; it lacks a genome and no longer synthesizes ATP. One example of such a reduced organelle, called the mitosome, is found in microsporidian parasites. Only a few mitosomal proteins are encoded in the complete genome of the microsporidian, Encephalitozoon cuniculi, no proteins of the mitochondrial carrier family were identified. However, the microsporidian, Antonospora locustae, has a protein that is heterologously targeted to mitochondria in Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Williams et al., 2008). The protein is phylogenetically allied to the NAD⁺ transporter of S. cerevisiae, but it has high specificity for ATP and ADP when expressed in E. coli. An ADP/ATP carrier may provide ATP for essential ATP-dependent mitosomal processes such as Hsp70-dependent protein import and export of iron-sulfur clusters to the cytosol.

BID, a proapoptotic BCL-2 family member, plays an essential role in the tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha)/Fas death receptor pathway in vivo. Activation of the TNF-R1 receptor results in the cleavage of BID into truncated BID (tBID), which translocates to the mitochondria and induces the activation of BAX or BAK. In TNF-alpha-activated FL5.12 cells, tBID becomes part of a 45-kDa cross-linkable mitochondrial complex. Grinberg et al. (2005) described the biochemical purification of this complex and the identification of mitochondrial carrier homolog 2 (Mtch2; TC# 2.A.29.25.2) as part of this complex. Mtch2 is similar to members of the mitochondrial carrier family. Mtch2 is an integral outer membrane protein exposed on the surface of mitochondria. Mtch2 resides in a protein complex of ca. 185 kDa, and the addition of TNF-alpha to these cells leads to the recruitment of tBID and BAX to this complex. Thus, Mtch2 is a mitochondrial target of tBID. The Mtch2-resident complex probably participates in the mitochondrial apoptotic program (Grinberg et al., 2005; Gross, 2005).

The generalized transport reaction for carriers of the MC family is:

S1 (out) + S2 (in) S1 (in) + S2 (out).