Figure 2.

Structure of transporters of the mitochondrial carrier family. Mitochondrial carriers typically consist of three repetitive analogous modules. Each module, roughly 100 amino acids in length, contains two transmembrane α-helices in the matrix side connected with another short α-helix. Short hydrophilic loops connecting individual repetitive modules as well as both C- and N-termini of the protein are located in the intermembrane space (IMS) [47,48]. Depicted are (a) a schematic of membrane topology and (b) a 3D structure of bovine ADP/ATP carrier (AAC1). Same colour coding is used in both panels. The 3D model was generated by iMol 0.40 software using structural data from [49]. Molecule of the inhibitor, carboxyatractyloside, bound to the carrier is shown as a balls-and-sticks model.