Fig. 1

hDAT structure and N-terminus interactions. (Left) Contact map for interaction of N-terminus residues (x-axis) with all hDAT residues (y-axis). Distance calculations were done with the closest-heavy algorithm implemented in MDTraj software [83]. The color bar shows the minimum distance of each residue in the N-terminus to other residues (the lightest colored regions indicate the strongest interactions, e.g., in the various loop segments) as identified in the ensemble of 50-μs trajectories for the wild-type hDAT embedded in the PIP₂-containing lipid bilayer (see Methods). (Right) Snapshot of hDAT structure highlighting the intracellular segments interacting with the N-terminus in the ensemble of 50-μs trajectories. Charged residues are shown in licorice