Amphipathic Helices Can Sense Both Positive and Negative Curvatures of Lipid Membranes

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Authors

PAJTINKA Peter VÁCHA Robert

Year of publication 2024
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Journal of physical chemistry letters
MU Faculty or unit

Central European Institute of Technology

Citation
Web https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c02785
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.3c02785
Keywords lipid bilayers; amphiphilic helices; positive-negative membrane curvature
Attached files
Description Curvature sensing is an essential ability of biomolecules to preferentially localize to membrane regions of a specific curvature. It has been shown that amphipathic helices(AHs),helical peptides with both hydrophilic and hydrophobic regions,could sense a positive membrane curvature.The origin of this AH sensing has been attributed to their ability to exploit lipid-packing defects that are enhanced in regions of positive curvature. In this study,we revisit an alternative framework where AHs act as sensors of local internal stress within the membrane,suggesting the possibility of an AH sensing a negative membrane curvature. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we gradually tuned the hydrophobicity of AHs, thereby adjusting their insertion depth so that the curvature preference of AHs is switched from positive to negative. This study suggests that highly hydrophobic AHs could preferentially localize proteins to regions of a negative membrane curvature.
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