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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Jun 5.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Microbiol. 2015 Dec 7;14(1):33–44. doi: 10.1038/nrmicro.2015.4

Figure 6. AAA+ remodelling of proteins and protein complexes.

Figure 6

(a) A AAA+ remodeling machine breaks a polymer into two pieces by unfolding an interior subunit. Remodelling of the polymer but not the monomer is possible if signals for AAA+ recognition are only properly arranged in the polymer. Related mechanisms may explain severing of microtubules, cell-division rings and amyloid fibers by AAA+ enzymes. (b) Model in which a AAA+ machine enhances the rate of cofactor insertion into a metabolic enzyme by inducing a conformational change in the cofactor binding site. This mechanism appears to be used by mitochondrial ClpX to catalyse incorporation of a cofactor into a haem biosynthesis enzyme103. (c) Multi-point binding of a complex to a AAA+ ring, followed by a major conformational change in the ring, might pull the complex apart. This mechanism may account for ClpB remodeling of some bacterial substrates and for disassembly of complexes required for membrane fusion in eukaryotic cells.