PHOENIX: Researchers have now shown how chaperones stabilize an immature bacterial membrane protein and guide it in the right folding direction, thus protecting it from misfolding.
Cellular machines continuously produce long polypeptide chains, the proteins. In order to properly fulfill its cellular function, a protein must however first adopt its correct spatial structure. In each cell there are molecular helper proteins called chaperones. They take care of the immature proteins to help them in the folding process and thus preventing errors. Scientists have discovered how two chaperones in the gut bacterium E. coli protect the membrane protein FhuA during transport and assist its insertion into the membrane.