Journal article
Membrane Curvature Sensing by Amphipathic Helices: Insights from Implicit Membrane Modeling
Biophysical journal, v 114(9), pp 2128-2141
08 May 2018
PMID: 29742406
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Sensing and generation of lipid membrane curvature, mediated by the binding of specific proteins onto the membrane surface, play crucial roles in cell biology. A number of mechanisms have been proposed, but the molecular understanding of these processes is incomplete. All-atom molecular dynamics simulations have offered valuable insights but are extremely demanding computationally. Implicit membrane simulations could provide a viable alternative, but current models apply only to planar membranes. In this work, the implicit membrane model 1 is extended to spherical and tubular membranes. The geometric change from planar to curved shapes is straightforward but insufficient for capturing the full curvature effect, which includes changes in lipid packing. Here, these packing effects are taken into account via the lateral pressure profile. The extended implicit membrane model 1 is tested on the wild-types and mutants of the antimicrobial peptide magainin, the ALPS motif of arfgap1, α-synuclein, and an ENTH domain. In these systems, the model is in qualitative agreement with experiments. We confirm that favorable electrostatic interactions tend to weaken curvature sensitivity in the presence of strong hydrophobic interactions but may actually have a positive effect when those are weak. We also find that binding to vesicles is more favorable than binding to tubes of the same diameter and that the long helix of α-synuclein tends to orient along the axis of tubes, whereas shorter helices tend to orient perpendicular to it. Adoption of a specific orientation could provide a mechanism for coupling protein oligomerization to tubule formation.
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Details
- Title
- Membrane Curvature Sensing by Amphipathic Helices: Insights from Implicit Membrane Modeling
- Creators
- Binod Nepal - City College of New YorkJohn Leveritt, 3rd - Department of Chemistry, Newman University, Wichita, KansasThemis Lazaridis - City College of New York
- Publication Details
- Biophysical journal, v 114(9), pp 2128-2141
- Publisher
- Elsevier
- Grant note
- G12 MD007603 / NIMHD NIH HHS
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Microbiology and Immunology
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000432697900013
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-85055350034
- Other Identifier
- 991021955787404721
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- Web of Science research areas
- Biophysics