Long-Range Organization of Membrane-Curving Proteins

M Simunovic and A Saric and JM Henderson and KYC Lee and GA Voth, ACS CENTRAL SCIENCE, 3, 1246-1253 (2017).

DOI: 10.1021/acscentsci.7b00392

Biological membranes have a central role in mediating the organization of membrane-curving proteins, a dynamic process that has proven to be challenging to probe experimentally. Using atomic force microscopy, we capture the hierarchically organized assemblies of Bin/amphiphysin/Rvs (BAR) proteins on supported lipid membranes. Their structure reveals distinct long linear aggregates of proteins, regularly spaced by up to 300 nm. Employing accurate freeenergy calculations from large-scale coarse-grained computer simulations, we found that the membrane mediates the interaction among protein filaments as a combination of short-and long-ranged interactions. The long-ranged component acts at strikingly long distances, giving rise to a variety of micron-sized ordered patterns. This mechanism may contribute to the long-ranged spatiotemporal control of membrane remodeling by proteins in the cell.

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