Whole-Body Rocking Motion of a Fusion Peptide in Lipid Bilayers from Size-Dispersed 15N NMR Relaxation.

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Whole-Body Rocking Motion of a Fusion Peptide in Lipid Bilayers from Size-Dispersed 15N NMR Relaxation.

Whole-Body Rocking Motion of a Fusion Peptide in Lipid Bilayers from Size-Dispersed 15N NMR Relaxation.

J Am Chem Soc. 2011 Aug 17;

Authors: Lorieau JL, Louis JM, Bax A

Abstract
Biological membranes present a highly fluid environment and integration of proteins within such membranes is itself highly dynamic: proteins diffuse laterally within the plane of the membrane, and rotationally about the normal vector of this plane. We demonstrate that whole-body motions of proteins within a lipid bilayer can be determined from NMR 15N relaxation rates collected for different size bicelles. The importance of membrane integration and interaction is particularly acute for proteins and peptides that function on the membrane itself, as is the case for pore-forming and fusion-inducing proteins. For the influenza hemagglutinin fusion peptide, which lies on the surface of membranes and catalyzes the fusion of membranes and vesicles, we find large-amplitude, rigid-body wobbling motions on the nanosecond timescale relative to the lipid bilayer. This behavior complements prior analyses where data were commonly interpreted in terms of a static oblique angle of insertion for the fusion peptide with respect to the membrane. Quantitative disentanglement of the relative motions of two interacting objects by systematically varying the size of one is applicable to a wide range of systems beyond protein-membrane interactions.


PMID: 21848255 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]



Source: PubMed