Loop C movements in the ELIC-GLIC chimera. (A) An overlay of ELIC-ECD in the apo (PDB accession no. 3RQU)- and GABA-flurazepam (PDB accession no. 4A96)–bound forms, with residues Asn184 and Ser189 highlighted (left). CW-EPR line shapes for the loop C positions in the apo conformation, and in the presence of 20 mM 3-AP, or at pH 3.0. The light and dark blue arrows highlight the immobile and mobile components of the spectra, respectively. (B) ELIC structure showing the location of Ser189 and corresponding cβ-cβ distances for the adjacent and nonadjacent subunits (left). Background-subtracted DEER echo intensity is plotted against evolution time and fit using model-free Tikhonov regularization. The corresponding interspin distance distribution (right). The arrows highlight the direction of change (orange, 3-AP; green, pH 3.0).