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Lateral gates: β-barrels get in on the act

BamA proteins are essential for the biogenesis of β-barrel outer-membrane proteins, but how BamA-assisted folding and outer-membrane insertion occur is not clear. X-ray crystal structures of three bacterial BamA orthologs now show a lateral gate in the BamA barrel that provides tantalizing clues regarding the biogenesis of outer-membrane proteins.

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Figure 1: BamA barrels have a lateral gate.
Figure 2: Different schematic models for OMP assembly by BamA.

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Correspondence to Bert van den Berg.

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van den Berg, B. Lateral gates: β-barrels get in on the act. Nat Struct Mol Biol 20, 1237–1239 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nsmb.2709

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