[Jfalken]

So I was looking at the malate shuttle that brings the NADH into the mitochondrial matrix from the glyolysis that occours in the cytosol.
So, it can not transport OAA over the membrane, but it can transport Malate over the membrane.

When we look at the different structures of these compounds we find that they only differ in one alcohol / carbonyl respectively.
It got me curious.. how have we been able to determine that this shuttle transporter can take malate but not OAA over the membrane?

Does anyone have the original papers on this?
Like.. how the hell could this transporter be so specific that it can transport the alcohol substrate yet not the carbonyl form of the same substrate...
I am actually somewhat amazed by this..

[Babcock_Hall]

I don't know what the primary references are, but I have found that PubMed is a convenient way to search the biochemical literature.  Determining the structure of a membrane bound proteins is generally more challenging than determining the structure of a water-soluble protein.  In the particular example you provided, I would think about differences in hybridization and hydrogen bonding, as possibly having an effect.