Lipid–Protein Interactions in Plasma Membrane Organization and Function

2022 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Taras Sych ◽  
Kandice R. Levental ◽  
Erdinc Sezgin

Lipid–protein interactions in cells are involved in various biological processes, including metabolism, trafficking, signaling, host–pathogen interactions, and transmembrane transport. At the plasma membrane, lipid–protein interactions play major roles in membrane organization and function. Several membrane proteins have motifs for specific lipid binding, which modulate protein conformation and consequent function. In addition to such specific lipid–protein interactions, protein function can be regulated by the dynamic, collective behavior of lipids in membranes. Emerging analytical, biochemical, and computational technologies allow us to study the influence of specific lipid–protein interactions, as well as the collective behavior of membranes on protein function. In this article, we review the recent literature on lipid–protein interactions with a specific focus on the current state-of-the-art technologies that enable novel insights into these interactions. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Biophysics, Volume 51 is May 2022. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (18) ◽  
pp. 2765-2768 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary L. Kraft

“Lipid raft” is the name given to the tiny, dynamic, and ordered domains of cholesterol and sphingolipids that are hypothesized to exist in the plasma membranes of eukaryotic cells. According to the lipid raft hypothesis, these cholesterol- and sphingolipid-enriched domains modulate the protein–protein interactions that are essential for cellular function. Indeed, many studies have shown that cellular levels of cholesterol and sphingolipids influence plasma membrane organization, cell signaling, and other important biological processes. Despite 15 years of research and the application of highly advanced imaging techniques, data that unambiguously demonstrate the existence of lipid rafts in mammalian cells are still lacking. This Perspective summarizes the results that challenge the lipid raft hypothesis and discusses alternative hypothetical models of plasma membrane organization and lipid-mediated cellular function.


2018 ◽  
Vol 115 (12) ◽  
pp. 2976-2981 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Patrick ◽  
Christopher D. Boone ◽  
Wen Liu ◽  
Gloria M. Conover ◽  
Yang Liu ◽  
...  

Membrane proteins interact with a myriad of lipid species in the biological membrane, leading to a bewildering number of possible protein−lipid assemblies. Despite this inherent complexity, the identification of specific protein−lipid interactions and the crucial role of lipids in the folding, structure, and function of membrane proteins is emerging from an increasing number of reports. Fundamental questions remain, however, regarding the ability of specific lipid binding events to membrane proteins to alter remote binding sites for lipids of a different type, a property referred to as allostery [Monod J, Wyman J, Changeux JP (1965)J Mol Biol12:88–118]. Here, we use native mass spectrometry to determine the allosteric nature of heterogeneous lipid binding events to membrane proteins. We monitored individual lipid binding events to the ammonia channel (AmtB) fromEscherichia coli, enabling determination of their equilibrium binding constants. We found that different lipid pairs display a range of allosteric modulation. In particular, the binding of phosphatidylethanolamine and cardiolipin-like molecules to AmtB exhibited the largest degree of allosteric modulation, inspiring us to determine the cocrystal structure of AmtB in this lipid environment. The 2.45-Å resolution structure reveals a cardiolipin-like molecule bound to each subunit of the trimeric complex. Mutation of a single residue in AmtB abolishes the positive allosteric modulation observed for binding phosphatidylethanolamine and cardiolipin-like molecules. Our results demonstrate that specific lipid−protein interactions can act as allosteric modulators for the binding of different lipid types to integral membrane proteins.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yanhui Hu ◽  
Richelle Sopko ◽  
Verena Chung ◽  
Romain A. Studer ◽  
Sean D. Landry ◽  
...  

AbstractPost-translational modification (PTM) serves as a regulatory mechanism for protein function, influencing stability, protein interactions, activity and localization, and is critical in many signaling pathways. The best characterized PTM is phosphorylation, whereby a phosphate is added to an acceptor residue, commonly serine, threonine and tyrosine. As proteins are often phosphorylated at multiple sites, identifying those sites that are important for function is a challenging problem. Considering that many phosphorylation sites may be non-functional, prioritizing evolutionarily conserved phosphosites provides a general strategy to identify the putative functional sites with regards to regulation and function. To facilitate the identification of conserved phosphosites, we generated a large-scale phosphoproteomics dataset from Drosophila embryos collected from six closely-related species. We built iProteinDB (https://www.flyrnai.org/tools/iproteindb/), a resource integrating these data with other high-throughput PTM datasets, including vertebrates, and manually curated information for Drosophila. At iProteinDB, scientists can view the PTM landscape for any Drosophila protein and identify predicted functional phosphosites based on a comparative analysis of data from closely-related Drosophila species. Further, iProteinDB enables comparison of PTM data from Drosophila to that of orthologous proteins from other model organisms, including human, mouse, rat, Xenopus laevis, Danio rerio, and Caenorhabditis elegans.


2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (7) ◽  
pp. 2554 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Lourdes Renart ◽  
Ana Marcela Giudici ◽  
Clara Díaz-García ◽  
María Luisa Molina ◽  
Andrés Morales ◽  
...  

KcsA, a prokaryote tetrameric potassium channel, was the first ion channel ever to be structurally solved at high resolution. This, along with the ease of its expression and purification, made KcsA an experimental system of choice to study structure–function relationships in ion channels. In fact, much of our current understanding on how the different channel families operate arises from earlier KcsA information. Being an integral membrane protein, KcsA is also an excellent model to study how lipid–protein and protein–protein interactions within membranes, modulate its activity and structure. In regard to the later, a variety of equilibrium and non-equilibrium methods have been used in a truly multidisciplinary effort to study the effects of lipids on the KcsA channel. Remarkably, both experimental and “in silico” data point to the relevance of specific lipid binding to two key arginine residues. These residues are at non-annular lipid binding sites on the protein and act as a common element to trigger many of the lipid effects on this channel. Thus, processes as different as the inactivation of channel currents or the assembly of clusters from individual KcsA channels, depend upon such lipid binding.


2009 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 378a
Author(s):  
Olivier Soubias ◽  
Shui-Lin Niu ◽  
Drake C. Mitchell ◽  
Klaus Gawrisch

Author(s):  
Thomas R. Shaw ◽  
Subhadip Ghosh ◽  
Sarah L. Veatch

Lateral organization in the plane of the plasma membrane is an important driver of biological processes. The past dozen years have seen increasing experimental support for the notion that lipid organization plays an important role in modulating this heterogeneity. Various biophysical mechanisms rooted in the concept of liquid–liquid phase separation have been proposed to explain diverse experimental observations of heterogeneity in model and cell membranes with distinct but overlapping applicability. In this review, we focus on the evidence for and the consequences of the hypothesis that the plasma membrane is poised near an equilibrium miscibility critical point. Critical phenomena explain certain features of the heterogeneity observed in cells and model systems but also go beyond heterogeneity to predict other interesting phenomena, including responses to perturbations in membrane composition. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Physical Chemistry, Volume 72 is April 20, 2021. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.


2017 ◽  
Vol 372 (1726) ◽  
pp. 20160216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Koji Tanaka ◽  
Jose M. M. Caaveiro ◽  
Koldo Morante ◽  
Kouhei Tsumoto

Pore-forming toxins (PFTs) are proteins endowed with metamorphic properties that enable them to stably fold in water solutions as well as in cellular membranes. PFTs produce lytic pores on the plasma membranes of target cells conducive to lesions, playing key roles in the defensive and offensive molecular systems of living organisms. Actinoporins are a family of potent haemolytic toxins produced by sea anemones vigorously studied as a paradigm of α-helical PFTs, in the context of lipid–protein interactions, and in connection with nanopore technologies. We have recently reported that fragaceatoxin C (FraC), an actinoporin, engages biological membranes with a large adhesive motif allowing the simultaneous attachment of up to four lipid molecules prior to pore formation. Since actinoporins also interact with carbohydrates, we sought to understand the molecular and energetic basis of glycan recognition by FraC. By employing structural and biophysical methodologies, we show that FraC engages glycans with low affinity using its lipid-binding module. Contrary to other PFTs requiring separate domains for glycan and lipid recognition, the small single-domain actinoporins economize resources by achieving dual recognition with a single binding module. This mechanism could enhance the recruitment of actinoporins to the surface of target tissues in their marine environment. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Membrane pores: from structure and assembly, to medicine and technology’.


2005 ◽  
Vol 33 (5) ◽  
pp. 916-920 ◽  
Author(s):  
M.S.P. Sansom ◽  
P.J. Bond ◽  
S.S. Deol ◽  
A. Grottesi ◽  
S. Haider ◽  
...  

Molecular dynamics simulations may be used to probe the interactions of membrane proteins with lipids and with detergents at atomic resolution. Examples of such simulations for ion channels and for bacterial outer membrane proteins are described. Comparison of simulations of KcsA (an α-helical bundle) and OmpA (a β-barrel) reveals the importance of two classes of side chains in stabilizing interactions with the head groups of lipid molecules: (i) tryptophan and tyrosine; and (ii) arginine and lysine. Arginine residues interacting with lipid phosphate groups play an important role in stabilizing the voltage-sensor domain of the KvAP channel within a bilayer. Simulations of the bacterial potassium channel KcsA reveal specific interactions of phosphatidylglycerol with an acidic lipid-binding site at the interface between adjacent protein monomers. A combination of molecular modelling and simulation reveals a potential phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate-binding site on the surface of Kir6.2.


2017 ◽  
Vol 117 (01) ◽  
pp. 105-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yvonne Schaletzki ◽  
Marie-Luise Kromrey ◽  
Susanne Bröderdorf ◽  
Elke Hammer ◽  
Markus Grube ◽  
...  

SummaryThe multidrug resistance protein 4 (MRP4/ABCC4) has been identified as an important transporter for signalling molecules including cyclic nucleotides and several lipid mediators in platelets and may thus represent a novel target to interfere with platelet function. Besides its localisation in the plasma membrane, MRP4 has been also detected in the membrane of dense granules in resting platelets. In polarised cells it is localised at the basolateral or apical plasma membrane. To date, the mechanism of MRP4 trafficking has not been elucidated; protein interactions may regulate both the localisation and function of this transporter. We approached this issue by searching for interacting proteins by in vitro binding assays, followed by immunoblotting and mass spectrometry, and by visualising their co-localisation in platelets and haematopoietic cells. We identified the PDZ domain containing scaffold proteins ezrin-binding protein 50 (EBP50/NHERF1), postsynaptic density protein 95 (PSD95), and sorting nexin 27 (SNX27), but also the adaptor protein complex 3 subunit β3A (AP3B1) and the heat shock protein HSP90 as putative interaction partners of MRP4. The knockdown of SNX27, PSD95, and AP3B1 by siRNA in megakaryoblastic leuk aemia cells led to a redistribution of MRP4 from intracellular structures to the plasma membrane. Inhibition of HSP90 led to a diminished expression and retention of MRP4 in the endoplasmic reticulum. These results indicate that MRP4 localisation and function are regulated by multiple protein interactions. Changes in the adaptor proteins can hence lead to altered localisation and function of the transporter.Supplementary Material to this article is available at www.thrombosis-online.com.


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