Proton pump
transmembrane protein that transports H⁺ ions against their concentration gradient
A proton pump is an integral membrane protein pump that builds up a proton gradient across a biological membrane. Proton pumps catalyzes the following reaction:
H+[on one side of a biological membrane] + energy ⇌ H+[on the other side of the membrane]
Mechanisms are based on energy-induced conformational changes of the protein structure, or on the Q cycle.
During evolution, proton pumps have arisen independently on multiple occasions. Thus, when comparing proton pumps- either same cell/different pump, or different cells/different pump- they will not all be evolutionarily related. Proton pumps are divided into different major classes of pumps that use different sources of energy, exhibiting different polypeptide compositions and evolutionary origins.
Function
Transport of the positively charged proton is typically electrogenic, i.e.: it generates an electric field across the membrane also called the membrane potential. Proton transport becomes electrogenic if not neutralized electrically by transport of either a corresponding negative charge in the same direction, or a corresponding positive charge in the opposite direction. An example of a proton pump that is not electrogenic, is the proton/potassium pump of the gastric mucosa which catalyzes a balanced exchange of protons and potassium ions.
The combined transmembrane gradient of protons and charges created by proton pumps is called an electrochemical gradient. An electrochemical gradient represents a store of energy (potential energy) that can be used to drive a multitude of biological processes such as ATP synthesis, nutrient uptake and action potential formation.
“Proton pump” enters the record as transmembrane protein that transports H⁺ ions against their concentration gradient. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Proton, pump and transmembrane can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q412272. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Proton pump” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.