Beta-galactoside permease

The protein is part of a system whose main function is to catalyze the accumulation and transport of lactose and other beta-galactosides across the permeable barrier of a membrane.

[3] This strain of beta-galactoside permease is known it transport melibiose and other galactosides across the cell membrane using hydrogen, sodium, or lithium ions in cotransport.

[4] Early studies by Hiroshi Nikaido in 1962 suggest a direct relationship between the amount of beta-galactoside permease activity in a cell and the turnover rate of phospholipids in E. coli.

Insofar, Nikaido concluded that this correlation suggested that phospholipids are involved in the process of transporting beta-galactosides through the cell membrane.

[5] However, later research in 1965 by Alvin Tarlov and Eugene Kennedy using carbon tracers reveals increased levels of glycerol and serine, in addition to those of phosphorus, in the presence of increasing levels of beta-galactoside accumulation.