Newly made proteins are moved across cellular membranes through a protein channel. The crystal structure of this channel is now revealed and confirms expectations that it must change shape to allow proteins to pass. All cellular proteins are synthesized in the body of the cell, the cytosol. But many of them must then be transported through phospholipid membranes to reach their final destinations, which might be intracellular compartments or even, following secretion, outside the cell. The molecularmechanism of this 'translocation' process has been the subject of elegant biochemical, genetic and biophysical studies.
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