Membrane Protein Crystallization in Lipidic Mesophases. Hosting lipid affects on the crystallization and structure of a transmembrane peptide.
Citation:
Höfer N, Aragão D, Lyons JA, Caffrey M., Membrane Protein Crystallization in Lipidic Mesophases. Hosting lipid affects on the crystallization and structure of a transmembrane peptide., Cryst Growth Design, 11, 4, 2011, 1182-1192Download Item:
Abstract:
Gramicidin is an apolar pentadecapeptide antibiotic consisting of alternating D-and L-amino acids.
It functions, in part, by creating pores in membranes of susceptible cells rendering them leaky to
monovalent cations. The peptide should be able to traverse the host membrane either as a double
stranded, intertwined double helix (DSDH) or as a head-to-head single stranded helix (HHSH).
Current structure models are based on macromolecular X-ray crystallography (MX) and nuclear
magnetic resonance (NMR). However, the HHSH form has only been observed by NMR. The
shape and size of the different gramicidin conformations differ. We speculated therefore that
reconstituting it into a lipidic mesophase with bilayers of different microstructures would
preferentially stabilize one form over the other. By using such mesophases for
in meso
crystallogenesis the expectation was that at least one would generate crystals of gramicidin in the
HHSH form for structure determination by MX. This was tested using commercial and in-house
synthesised lipids that support
in meso
crystallogenesis. Lipid acyl chain lengths were varied from
14 to 18 carbons to provide mesophases with a range of bilayer thicknesses. Unexpectedly, all
lipids produced high quality, structure-grade crystals with gramicidin only in the DSDH
conformation
Sponsor
Grant Number
Science Foundation Ireland (SFI)
07/IN.1/B1836
Author's Homepage:
http://people.tcd.ie/mcaffreDescription:
PUBLISHED
Author: CAFFREY, MARTIN
Type of material:
Journal ArticleCollections
Series/Report no:
Cryst Growth Design11
4
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Full text availableKeywords:
BiochemistryDOI:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021%2Fcg101384pMetadata
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