In bacteria, the Tat translocase is found in the cytoplasmic membrane and serves to export proteins to the cell envelope, or to the extracellular space.
[4] The name of the Tat pathway relates to a highly conserved twin-arginine leader motif (S/TRRXFLK) which is found in the N terminal Signal peptide of the corresponding passenger proteins.
[7][8] Not all bacteria carry the tatABC genes in their genome;[9] however, of those that do, there seems to be no discrimination between pathogens and nonpathogens.
Despite that fact, some pathogenic bacteria such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Legionella pneumophila, Yersinia pseudotuberculosis, and E. coli O157:H7 rely on a functioning Tat pathway for full virulence in infection models.
In addition, a number of exported virulence factors have been shown to rely on the Tat pathway.