Structure of the Mitochondrial Translocator Protein in Complex with a Diagnostic Ligand

Abstract

Translocation in Injury The translocator protein TSPO is essential for the import of cholesterol and porphyrins into mitochondria. TSPO expression increases in areas of brain injury and during neuroinflammation and, thus, has diagnostic and therapeutic implications. Jaremko et al. (p. 1363 ) used nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to determine the high-resolution structure of the 18- kilodalton mammalian TSPO with the ligand PK11195, which stabilized the structure and resolved the conformation as a tight bundle of five helices.