bacterial infections. Yet high-resolution structures of ligandtransporter complexes have
previously been unavailable. We obtained x-ray crystallographic structures of the trimeric
AcrB pump from Escherichia coli with four structurally diverse ligands. The structures show
that three molecules of ligands bind simultaneously to the extremely large central cavity of
5000 cubic angstroms, primarily by hydrophobic, aromatic stacking and van der Waals …