Congratulations to first author Michael Newton-Vesty and thanks to all of our collaborators across New Zealand, Australia, and Italy who made this possible.

This work extends our understanding of TRAP transporters beyond sialic acid systems, revealing how these sodium-coupled machines recognise and move a different class of substrates.

Functional assays show that the system is Na⁺-driven, and that transport relies on a partner substrate-binding protein (IseP) for delivery and specificity. The membrane transporter alone does not efficiently transport isethionate, so binding is effectively outsourced to its soluble partner.