ABC TRANSPORTERS
All living organisms depend on primary and secondary membrane transport for the supply of external nutrients and removal or sequestration of unwanted (toxic) compounds.
The ATP-binding cassette transporters (ABC transporters, shown here) are a transport system superfamily that is one of the largest and possibly one of the oldest gene families.
ABC transporters can transport a wide spectrum of substrates, from small inorganic and organic molecules, such as amino acids, sugars, nucleosides, vitamins and metal clusters to larger organic compounds, including peptides, lipid molecules, oligonucleotides and polysaccharides.
