Project description:Cyclotides are ultra-stable cyclic disulfide-rich peptides from plants. Their biophysical effects and medically interesting activities are related to their membrane-binding properties, with particularly high affinity for phosphatidylethanolamine lipids. In this study we were interested in understanding the molecular details of cyclotide-membrane interactions, specifically with regard to the spatial orientation of the cyclotide kalata B1 from Oldenlandia affinis when embedded in a lipid bilayer. Our experimental approach was based on the use of solid-state 19F-NMR of oriented bilayers in conjunction with the conformationally restricted amino acid L-3-(trifluoromethyl)bicyclopent-[1.1.1]-1-ylglycine as an orientation-sensitive 19F-NMR probe. Its rigid connection to the kalata B1 backbone scaffold, together with the well-defined structure of the cyclotide, allowed us to calculate the protein alignment in the membrane directly from the orientation-sensitive 19F-NMR signal. The hydrophobic and polar residues on the surface of kalata B1 form well-separated patches, endowing this cyclotide with a pronounced amphipathicity. The peptide orientation, as determined by NMR, showed that this amphipathic structure matches the polar/apolar interface of the lipid bilayer very well. A location in the amphiphilic headgroup region of the bilayer was supported by 15N-NMR of uniformly labeled protein, and confirmed using solid-state 31P- and 2H-NMR. 31P-NMR relaxation data indicated a change in lipid headgroup dynamics induced by kalata B1. Changes in the 2H-NMR order parameter profile of the acyl chains suggest membrane thinning, as typically observed for amphiphilic peptides embedded near the polar/apolar bilayer interface. Furthermore, from the 19F-NMR analysis two important charged residues, E7 and R28, were found to be positioned equatorially. The observed location thus would be favorable for the postulated binding of E7 to phosphatidylethanolamine lipid headgroups. Furthermore, it may be speculated that this pair of side chains could promote oligomerization of kalata B1 through electrostatic intermolecular contacts via their complementary charges.

Project description:Sphingomyelin is a lipid that is abundant in the nervous systems of mammals, where it is associated with putative microdomains in cellular membranes and undergoes alterations due to aging or neurodegeneration. We investigated the effect of varying the concentration of cholesterol in binary and ternary mixtures with N-palmitoylsphingomyelin (PSM) and 1-palmitoyl-2-oleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (POPC) using deuterium nuclear magnetic resonance ((2)H NMR) spectroscopy in both macroscopically aligned and unoriented multilamellar dispersions. In our experiments, we used PSM and POPC perdeuterated on the N-acyl and sn-1 acyl chains, respectively. By measuring solid-state (2)H NMR spectra of the two lipids separately in mixtures with the same compositions as a function of cholesterol mole fraction and temperature, we obtained clear evidence for the coexistence of two liquid-crystalline domains in distinct regions of the phase diagram. According to our analysis of the first moments M1 and the observed (2)H NMR spectra, one of the domains appears to be a liquid-ordered phase. We applied a mean-torque potential model as an additional tool to calculate the average hydrocarbon thickness, the area per lipid, and structural parameters such as chain extension and thermal expansion coefficient in order to further define the two coexisting phases. Our data imply that phase separation takes place in raftlike ternary PSM/POPC/cholesterol mixtures over a broad temperature range but vanishes at cholesterol concentrations equal to or greater than a mole fraction of 0.33. Cholesterol interacts preferentially with sphingomyelin only at smaller mole fractions, above which a homogeneous liquid-ordered phase is present. The reasons for these phase separation phenomena seem to be differences in the effects of cholesterol on the configurational order of the palmitoyl chains in PSM-d31 and POPC-d31 and a difference in the affinity of cholesterol for sphingomyelin observed at low temperatures. Hydrophobic matching explains the occurrence of raftlike domains in cellular membranes at intermediate cholesterol concentrations but not saturating amounts of cholesterol.

Dataset Information

Orientation and Order of the Amide Group of Sphingomyelin in Bilayers Determined by Solid-State NMR.

Publications

Orientation and Order of the Amide Group of Sphingomyelin in Bilayers Determined by Solid-State NMR.

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