Lipid bilayers

We report the observation of bilayer fragments, some of which close to form vesicles, over a large range of pH at room temperature from mixtures of single-chain biocompatible commercially available nontoxic alkyl carboxylic surfactants after neutralization with HCl. The pH at which the morphological transitions occur is varied only by changing the ratio between two surfactants: the alkyloligoethyleneoxide carboxylate and sodium laurate. The effect of aging of the mixed surfactant systems in the pH region desired for dermatologic application (4.5 < pH < 7) is also studied. Finally, we show results of cytotoxicity studies on the surfactant mixtures.

Ezrin, radixin and moesin (ERM) proteins are now more and more recognized to play a key role in a large number of important physiological processes such as morphogenesis, cancer metastasis and virus infection. Several recent reviews extensively discuss their biological functions [1][2][3][4]. In this review, we will first remind the main features of this family of proteins, which are now known as linkers and regulators of the plasma membrane/cytoskeleton linkage. We will then briefly review their implication in pathological processes such as cancer and viral infection. In a second part, we will focus on biochemical and biophysical approaches to study ERM interaction with lipid membranes and conformational change in well-defined environments. In vitro studies using biomimetic lipid membranes, especially large unilamellar vesicles (LUVs), giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) and supported lipid bilayers (SLBs) and recombinant proteins help to understand the molecular mechanism of conformational activation of ERM proteins. These tools are aimed to decorticate the different steps of the interaction, to simplify the experiments performed in vivo in much more complex biological environments.

Addition of membrane vesicles prepared from transverse tubule (T-tubule) membranes of rabbit skeletal muscle to the aqueous phase of a planar lipid bilayer induces a stepwise increase in conductance. This conductance is both voltage and Ca2+ dependent. At 1 mM Ca2+, the steady-state conductance is maximal at voltages higher than +20 mV and decreases for more negative voltages. (Voltages refer to the side to which the vesicles are added, cis) Decreasing the Ca2+ concentration reversibly shifts the conductance-voltage curve toward the right along the voltage axis. Furthermore, Ca2+ can activate the conductance only if added to the cis compartment. Neither Mg2+, Ba2+, nor Cd2+ can activate the conductance induced by T-tubule vesicles. Addition of 5 mM tetraethylammonium ion to the trans, but not the cis, side abolishes the T-tubule-induced conductance. The Ca2+-dependent conductance appears as a consequence of ionic channel formation. Single-channel activity appears in bursts followed ...

Potassium (K þ )-channel gating is choreographed by a complex interplay between external stimuli, K þ concentration and lipidic environment. We combined solid-state NMR and electrophysiological experiments on a chimeric KcsA-Kv1.3 channel to delineate K þ , pH and blocker effects on channel structure and function in a membrane setting. Our data show that pH-induced activation is correlated with protonation of glutamate residues at or near the activation gate. Moreover, K þ and channel blockers distinctly affect the open probability of both the inactivation gate comprising the selectivity filter of the channel and the activation gate. The results indicate that the two gates are coupled and that effects of the permeant K þ ion on the inactivation gate modulate activation-gate opening. Our data suggest a mechanism for controlling coordinated and sequential opening and closing of activation and inactivation gates in the K þ -channel pore.

Colloidal stabile nanoerythrosomes with 200 nm average diameter were formed from hemoglobin-free erythrocyte ghost membrane via sonication and membrane extrusion. The incorporation of extra lipid (1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, DPPC), added to the sonicated ghosts, caused significant changes in the thermotropic character of the original membranes. As a result of the increased DPPC ratio the chain melting of the hydrated DPPC system and the characteristic small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) of the lipid bilayers appeared. Significant morphological changes were followed by transmission electron microscopy combined with freeze fracture method (FF-TEM). After the ultrasonic treatment the large entities of erythrocyte ghosts transformed into nearly spherical nanoerythrosomes with diameters between 100-300 nm and at the same time a great number of 10-30 nm large membrane proteins or protein clusters were dispersed in the aqueous medium. The infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) pointed out, that the sonication did not cause changes in the secondary structures of the membrane proteins under our preparation conditions. About fivefold of extra lipidcompared to the lipid content of the original membranecaused homogeneous dispersion of nanoerythrosomes however the shape of the vesicles was not uniform. After the addition of about tenfold of DPPC, monoform and monodisperse nanoerythrosomes became typical. The outer surfaces of these roughly spherical objects were frequently polygonal, consisting of a net of pentagons and hexagons..

Cobra cardiotoxins, a family of basic polypeptides having lipidand heparin-binding capacities similar to the cell-penetrating peptides, induce severe tissue necrosis and systolic heart arrest in snakebite victims. Whereas cardiotoxins are specifically retained on the cell surface via heparan sulfate-mediated processes, their lipid binding ability appears to be responsible, at least in part, for cardiotoxin-induced membrane leakage and cell death. Although the exact role of lipids involved in toxin-mediated cytotoxicity remains largely unknown, monoclonal anti-sulfatide antibody O4 has recently been shown to inhibit the action of CTX A3, the major cardiotoxin from Taiwan cobra venom, on cardiomyocytes by preventing cardiotoxin-induced membrane leakage and CTX A3 internalization into mitochondria. Here, we show that anti-sulfatide acts by blocking the binding of CTX A3 to the sulfatides in the plasma membrane to prevent sulfatide-dependent CTX A3 membrane pore formation and internalization. We also describe the crystal structure of a CTX A3-sulfatide complex in a membrane-like environment at 2.3 A ˚resolution. The unexpected orientation of the sulfatide fatty chains in the structure allows prediction of the mode of toxin insertion into the plasma membrane. CTX A3 recognizes both the headgroup and the ceramide interfacial region of sulfatide to induce a lipid conformational change that may play a key role in CTX A3 oligomerization and cellular internalization. This proposed lipid-mediated toxin translocation mechanism may also shed light on the cellular uptake mechanism of the amphiphilic cell-penetrating peptides known to involve multiple internalization pathways.

Submillimolar concentrations of cytotoxic bile acids (BAs) induce cell death via apoptosis. On the other hand, several cytoprotective BAs were shown to prevent apoptosis in the same concentration range. Still, the mechanisms by which BAs trigger these opposite signaling effects remain unclear. This study was aimed to determine if cytotoxic and cytoprotective BAs, at physiologically active concentrations, are able to modulate the biophysical properties of lipid membranes, potentially translating into changes in the apoptotic threshold of cells. Binding of BAs to membranes was assessed through the variation of fluorescence parameters of suitable derivatized BAs. These derivatives partitioned with higher affinity to liquid disordered than to the cholesterolenriched liquid ordered domains. Unlabeled BAs were also shown to have a superficial location upon interaction with the lipid membrane. Additionally, the interaction of cytotoxic BAs with membranes resulted in membrane expansion, as concluded from FRET data. Moreover, it was shown that cytotoxic BAs were able to significantly disrupt the ordering of the membrane by cholesterol at physiologically active concentrations of the BA, an effect not associated with cholesterol removal. On the other hand, cytoprotective bile acids had no effect on membrane properties. It was concluded that, given the observed effects on membrane rigidity, the apoptotic activity of cytotoxic BAs could be potentially associated with changes in plasma membrane organization (e.g. modulation of lipid domains) or with an increase in mitochondrial membrane affinity for apoptotic proteins.

Coupling atomic force microscopy (AFM) with high-resolution fluorescence microscopy is an attractive means of identifying membrane domains by both physical topography and fluorescence. We have used this approach to study the ability of a suite of fluorescent molecules to probe domain structures in supported planar bilayers. These included BODIPY-labeled ganglioside, sphingomyelin, and three new cholesterol derivatives, as well as NBD-labeled phosphatidylcholine, sphingomyelin, and cholesterol. Interestingly, many fluorescent lipid probes, including derivatives of known raft-associated lipids, preferentially partitioned into topographical features consistent with nonraft domains. This suggests that the covalent attachment of a small fluorophore to a lipid molecule can abolish its ability to associate with rafts. In addition, the localization of one of the BODIPYcholesterol derivatives was dependent on the lipid composition of the bilayer. These data suggest that conclusions about the identification of membrane domains in supported planar bilayers on the basis of fluorescent lipid probes alone must be interpreted with caution. The combination of AFM with fluorescence microscopy represents a more rigorous means of identifying lipid domains in supported bilayers.

The present study focuses on the amidation reaction of Phoenix dactylifera L. kernel oil and produce fatty amide from this oil. The reaction was optimized using diethanolamine (DEA) as the reactant and various catalysts. The synthesis of fatty amide was confirmed through Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy, proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1 H NMR), and carbon-13 nuclear magnetic resonance (13 C NMR) analyses. The physical and chemical properties of this fatty amide, including acid number (AN), iodine value (IV), density, pH, and thermal stability, were also analyzed. Normalized FT-IR and 1 H NMR were also used in process optimization. Furthermore, 1 H NMR spectroscopy was used to determine the fatty acid percentage, functionality (fn), hydroxyl number (HN), and conversion percentage of the synthesized fatty amide.

Time-dependent fluorescence shift (TDFS) of Laurdan embedded in phospholipid bilayers reports on hydration and mobility of the phospholipid acylgroups. Exchange of H2O with D2O prolongs the lifetime of lipid-water and lipid-water-lipid interactions, which is reflected in a significantly slower TDFS kinetics. Combining TDFS measurements in H2O and D2O hydrated bilayers with atomistic molecular dynamics (MD) simulations provides a unique tool for characterization of the hydrogen bonding at the acylgroup level of lipid bilayers. In this work, we use this approach to study the influence of fluoride anions on the properties of cationic bilayers composed of trimethylammonium-propane (DOTAP). The results obtained for DOTAP are confronted with those for neutral phosphatidylcholine (DOPC) bilayers. Both in DOTAP and DOPC H2O/D2O exchange prolongs hydrogen-bonding lifetime and does not disturb bilayer structure. These results are confirmed by MD simulations. TDFS experiments show, however, th...

Fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) is a single molecule technique used mainly for determination of mobility and local concentration of molecules. This review describes the specific problems of FCS in planar systems and reviews the state of the art experimental approaches such as 2-focus, Z-scan or scanning FCS, which overcome most of the artefacts and limitations of standard FCS. We focus on diffusion measurements of lipids and proteins in planar lipid membranes and review the contributions of FCS to elucidating membrane dynamics and the factors influencing it, such as membrane composition, ionic strength, presence of membrane proteins or frictional coupling with solid support.

Depth of bilayer penetration and effects on lipid mobility conferred by the membrane-active peptides magainin, melittin, and a hydrophobic helical sequence KKA(LA)7KK (denoted KAL), were investigated by colorimetric and time-resolved fluorescence techniques in biomimetic phospholipid/poly(diacetylene) vesicles. The experiments demonstrated that the extent of bilayer permeation and peptide localization within the membrane was dependent upon the bilayer composition, and that distinct dynamic modifications were induced by each peptide within the head-group environment of the phospholipids. Solvent relaxation, fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and fluorescence quenching analyses, employing probes at different locations within the bilayer, showed that magainin and melittin inserted close to the glycerol residues in bilayers incorporating negatively charged phospholipids, but predominant association at the lipid-water interface occurred in bilayers containing zwitterionic phospholipid...

The behavior of oxysterols in phospholipid membranes and their effects on membrane properties was investigated by means of dynamic light scattering, fluorescence spectroscopy, NMR, and extensive atomistic simulations. Two families of oxysterols were scrutinizedtail-oxidized sterols, which are mostly produced by enzymatic processes, and ring-oxidized sterols, formed mostly via reactions with free radicals. The former family of sterols was found to behave similarly to cholesterol in terms of molecular orientation, roughly parallel to the bilayer normal, leading to increasing membrane stiffness and suppression of its membrane permeability. In contrast, ringoxidized sterols behave quantitatively differently from cholesterol. They acquire tilted orientations and therefore disrupt the bilayer structure with potential implications for signaling and other biochemical processes in the membranes.

Cholesteryl hemisuccinate (CHS) is one of the cholesterol-mimicking detergents not observed in nature. It is, however, widely used in protein crystallography, in biochemical studies of proteins, and in pharmacology. Here, we performed an extensive experimental and theoretical study on the behavior of CHS in lipid membranes rich in unsaturated phospholipids. We found that the deprotonated form of CHS (that is the predominant form under physiological conditions) does not mimic cholesterol very well. The protonated form of CHS does better in this regard, but also its ability to mimic the physical effects of cholesterol on lipid membranes is limited. Overall, although ordering and condensing effects characteristic to cholesterol are present in systems containing any form of CHS, their strength is appreciably weaker compared to cholesterol. Based on the considerable amount of experimental and atomistic simulation data, we conclude that these differences originate from the fact that the ester group of CHS does not anchor it in an optimal position at the water-membrane interface. The implications of these findings for considerations of protein-cholesterol interactions are briefly discussed.

Lipid asymmetry is a ubiquitous property of the lipid bilayers in cellular membranes and its maintenance and loss play important roles in cell physiology, such as blood coagulation and apoptosis. The resulting exposure of phosphatidylserine on the outer surface of the plasma membrane has been suggested to be caused by a specific membrane enzyme, scramblase, which catalyzes phospholipid flip-flop. Despite extensive research the role of scramblase(s) in apoptosis has remained elusive. Here, we show that phospholipid flip-flop is efficiently enhanced in liposomes by oxidatively modified phosphatidylcholines. A combination of fluorescence spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations reveal that the mechanistic basis for this property of oxidized phosphatidylcholines is due to major changes imposed by the oxidized phospholipids on the biophysical properties of lipid bilayers, resulting in a fast cross bilayer diffusion of membrane phospholipids and loss of lipid asymmetry, requiring no scramblase protein.

A new (to our knowledge) robust approach for the determination of lateral diffusion coefficients of weakly bound proteins is applied for the phosphatidylserine specific membrane interaction of bovine prothrombin. It is shown that z-scan fluorescence correlation spectroscopy in combination with pulsed interleaved dual excitation allows simultaneous monitoring of the lateral diffusion of labeled protein and phospholipids. Moreover, from the dependencies of the particle numbers on the axial sample positions at different protein concentrations phosphatidylserine-dependent equilibrium dissociation constants are derived confirming literature values. Increasing the amount of membrane-bound prothrombin retards the lateral protein and lipid diffusion, indicating coupling of both processes. The lateral diffusion coefficients of labeled lipids are considerably larger than the simultaneously determined lateral diffusion coefficients of prothrombin, which contradicts findings reported for the isolated N-terminus of prothrombin.

The phospholipid headgroup mobility of small unilamellar vesicles composed of different mixtures of phosphatidyl-Lserine (PS) and phosphatidylcholine is characterized by the solvent relaxation behavior of the polarity sensitive dyes 6propionyl-2-(dimethylamino)naphthalene (Prodan) and 6-palmitoyl-2-[trimethylammoniumethyl]-methylamino]naphthalene chloride (Patman). If the PS content exceeds 10%, the addition of calcium leads to a substantial deceleration of the solvent relaxation of both dyes, indicating the formation of Ca(PS)2 complexes. Addition of prothrombin and its fragment 1 leads to a further decrease of the headgroup mobility, as explained by the binding of more than two PS-molecules by a single protein molecule. Prodan monitors the outermost region of the bilayer and it clearly distinguishes between the binding of prothrombin and its fragment 1. The deeper incalated Patman does not distinguish between both proteins. The validity of the solvent relaxation technique for the investigation of the membrane binding of peripheral proteins is demonstrated by the studies of prothrombin induced changes in the steady-state fluorescence anisotropies of 1,6-diphenyl-l,3,5-hexatriene.

Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy in the form of pulsed electron-electron double resonance (ELDOR) was applied to 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC) phospholipid bilayers containing lipids that were spin-labeled at different carbon positions along the lipid acyl chain. Pulsed ELDOR detects motionally induced spin flips of nitrogen nuclei in the nitroxide spin labels, which manifests itself as magnetization transfer (MT) in the nitroxide EPR spectrum. The MT effect was observed over a wide temperature range (100–225 K) on a microsecond time scale. In line with a previous study on molecular glasses [N. P. Isaev and S. A. Dzuba, J. Chem. Phys. 135, 094508 (2011)10.1063/1.3633241], the motions that induce MT effect were suggested to have the same nature as those in dielectric secondary (β) Johari-Goldstein fast relaxation. The results were compared with literature dielectric relaxation data for POPC bilayers, revealing some common features. Molecula...

To probe structural changes that occur when a membrane protein is transferred from lipid bilayers to SDS micelles, a fragment of bacteriorhodopsin containing transmembrane helical segments A and B was studied by fluorescence spectroscopy, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, and stopped flow kinetics. In lipid bilayers, Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) was observed between tyrosine 57 on helix B and tryptophans 10 and 12 on helix A. FRET efficiency decreased substantially when the peptide was transferred to SDS. MD simulation showed no evidence for significant disruption of helix-helix interactions in SDS micelles. However, a cluster of water molecules was observed to form a hydrogen-bonded network with the phenolic hydroxyl group of tyrosine 57, which probably causes the disappearance of tyrosine-to-tryptophan FRET in SDS. The tryptophan quantum yield decreased in SDS, and the change occurred at nearly the same rate as membrane solubilization. The results provide a clear example of the importance of corroborating distance changes inferred from FRET by using complementary methods.