Journal article
Lipid tail chain asymmetry and the strength of membrane-induced interactions between membrane proteins
Biochimica et biophysica acta. Biomembranes, v 1768(10), pp 2393-2399
2007
PMID: 17559802
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Many lipids are composed of asymmetric tail chains that differ by their molecular weight (MW) and/or degree of saturation. Previous studies found that membrane moduli vary with the degree of lipid tail asymmetry. However, to date little is known regarding the effect (if any) of tail asymmetry on the membrane-induced interactions between embedded proteins. In this paper we use a self-consistent field model to examine the effect of lipid tail asymmetry on membrane proteins. We first examine the case where the overall tail length (sum of both chains) is held constant, which implies that the membrane thickness remains constant as well, independent of tail asymmetry. We find that, in these systems, the membrane area stretch and bending moduli decrease with increasing chain asymmetry, thereby reducing the magnitude of the membrane-induced barrier to protein aggregation. Since in symmetric lipid bilayers the energy barrier is typically of order ∼
1–2 times the thermal energy kT, the asymmetry-induced reduction in barrier height may increase the probability of protein aggregation significantly. In systems where one tail chain is held constant, increasing asymmetry involves changes in the bilayer thickness which are found to dominate any effect arising from the asymmetry.
Metrics
Details
- Title
- Lipid tail chain asymmetry and the strength of membrane-induced interactions between membrane proteins
- Creators
- Nily Dan - Drexel University
- Publication Details
- Biochimica et biophysica acta. Biomembranes, v 1768(10), pp 2393-2399
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000250663400006
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-34948881202
- Other Identifier
- 991019312440104721
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This publication has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Web of Science research areas
- Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
- Biophysics