The first eukaryotic ABC transporters identified were discovered because of their ability to pump hydrophobic drugs out of the cytosol. One of these transporters is the multidrug resistance (MDR) protein, also called P-glycoprotein. It is present at elevated levels in many human cancer cells and makes the cells simultaneously resistant to a variety of chemically unrelated cytotoxic drugs that are widely used in cancer chemotherapy. Treatment with any one of these drugs can result in the selective survival and overgrowth of those cancer cells that express an especially large amount of the MDR transporter. These cells pump drugs out of the cell very efficiently and are therefore relatively resistant to the drugs’ toxic effects (Movie 11.5). Selection for cancer cells with resistance to one drug can thereby lead to resistance to a wide variety of anticancer drugs. Some studies indicate that up to 40% of human cancers develop multidrug resistance, making it a major hurdle in the battle against cancer.
A related and equally sinister phenomenon occurs in the protist Plasmodium falciparum, which causes malaria. More than 200 million people are infected worldwide with this parasite, which remains a major cause of human death, killing almost a million people every year. The development of resistance to the antimalarial drug chloroquine has hampered the control of malaria. The resistant
P. falciparum have amplified a gene encoding an ABC transporter that pumps out the chloroquine.
Figure 11–17 a small section of the double membrane of an E. coli bacterium. The inner membrane is the cell’s plasma membrane. Between the inner and outer membranes is a highly porous, rigid peptidoglycan layer, composed of protein and polysaccharide that constitute the bacterial cell wall. It is attached to lipoprotein molecules in the outer membrane and fills the periplasmic space (only a little of the peptidoglycan layer is shown). This space also contains a variety of soluble protein molecules. The dashed threads (shown in green) at the top represent the polysaccharide chains of the special lipopolysaccharide molecules that form the external monolayer of the outer membrane; for clarity, only a few of these chains are shown. Bacteria with double membranes are called Gram-negative because they do not retain the dark blue dye used in Gram staining. Bacteria with single membranes (but thicker peptidoglycan cell walls), such as staphylococci and streptococci, retain the blue dye and are therefore called Gram-positive; their single membrane is analogous to the inner (plasma) membrane of Gram-negative bacteria.
Figure 11–18 The auxiliary transport system associated with transport aTPases in bacteria with double membranes. The solute diffuses through channel proteins (porins) in the outer membrane and binds to a periplasmic substrate-binding protein that delivers it to the ABC transporter, which pumps it across the plasma membrane. The peptidoglycan is omitted for simplicity; its porous structure allows the substrate-binding proteins and water-soluble solutes to move through it by diffusion.
In most vertebrate cells, an ABC transporter in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membrane (named transporter associated with antigen processing, or TAP transporter) actively pumps a wide variety of peptides from the cytosol into the ER lumen. These peptides are produced by protein degradation in proteasomes (discussed in Chapter 6). They are carried from the ER to the cell surface, where they are displayed for scrutiny by cytotoxic T lymphocytes, which kill the cell if the peptides are derived from a virus or other microorganism lurking in the cytosol of an infected cell (discussed in Chapter 24).