Major Facilitator Superfamily (MFS)
- Utilize antiporter, symporter or uniporter mechanisms.
- Ancient family like ABC, consist of efflux of more than 17 families specific for efflux of drugs, antibiotics, sugars, anions etc.
- Most functionally diverse, energized by electrochemical proton gradient found in Archaea, Bacteria and Eukaryotes.
- Well characterized members: LacY, Glut1, EmrD, LmrP, Mdfa, TetB ect.
- Approximate 500 sequenced members.
- Size ~ 400 residues but variable 12 or 14 spanners.
Reference:Stavri et al (2007)Bacterial efflux pump inhibitors from natural sources Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy 59: 1247–1260