Open, engage, bind, translocate: The multi-level dynamics of bacterial protein translocation.

The bacterial Sec translocase transports unfolded proteins across membranes. In this issue of Structure, Krishnamurthy et al. (2021) report a nexus of conformational dynamics in the translocase motor protein, SecA. Their findings shed light on the Sec activation mechanism and suggest a general role for multi-level dynamics in protein functions.