Self-assembly lipid membranes

The emission of Trp 19 in melittin shifts to the red side peaking at 341 nm (Fig. 18), and the probe location slightly moves away from the lipid interface toward the channel center. Consistently, we observed a larger fraction of the ultrafast solvation component (35%) and a smaller contribution of slow ordered-water motion (38%). Melittin consists of 26 amino acid residues (Fig. 9), and the first 20 residues are predominantly hydrophobic, whereas the other 6 near the carboxyl terminus are hydrophilic under physiological conditions. This amphipathic property makes melittin easily bound to membranes, and extensive studies from both experiments [156-161] and MD simulations [162-166] have shown the formation of an 7-helix at the lipid interface. Self-assembly of 7-helical melittin monomers is believed to be important in its lytic activity of membranes [167-169]. Our observed hydration dynamics are consistent with previous studies, which support the view that melittin forms an 7-helix and inserts into the lipid bilayers and leaves the hydrophilic C-terminus protruding into the water channel. The orientational relaxation shows a completely restricted motion of Trp 19, and the anisotropy is constant in 1.5 ns (Fig. 20b), which is consistent with Trp 19 located close to the interface around the headgroups and rigid well-ordered water molecules. 

Liquid assemblies such as lipid bilayers are of fundamental importance as biological membranes. Self-assembled monolayers on solid substrates have significant technological applications as coatings and sensors and in nanofabrication. 

Such differences could play an important role in determining the insertion sites for proteins if their lipid binding sites are specific for certain types of lipids. The self assembly model could also explain how extrinsic subunits of enzymes could be integrated at special sites, since their insertion would be dependent on the presence of their appropriate hydrophobic partners in the membrane. 

In the first step, lipid model membranes have been generated (Fig. 15) on the air/liquid interface, on a glass micropipette (see Section VIII.A.1), and on an aperture that separates two cells filled with subphase (see Section VIII.A.2). Further, amphiphilic lipid molecules have been self-assembled in an aqueous medium surrounding unilamellar vesicles (see Section VIII.A.3). Subsequently, the S-layer protein of B. coagulans E38/vl, B. stearother-mophilus PV72/p2, or B. sphaericus CCM 2177 have been injected into the aqueous subphase (Fig. 15). As on solid supports, crystal growth of S-layer lattices on planar or vesicular lipid films is initiated simultaneously at many randomly distributed nucleation... 

In reconstitution experiments, the self-assembly of the pore-forming protein a-hemolysin of Staphylococcus aureus (aHL) [181-183] was examined in plain and S-layer-supported lipid bilayers. Staphylococcal aHL formed lytic pores when added to the lipid-exposed side of the DPhPC bilayer with or without an attached S-layer from B coagulans E38/vl. The assembly of aHL pores was slower at S-layer-supported compared to unsupported folded membranes. No assembly could be detected upon adding aHL monomers to the S-layer face of the composite membrane. Therefore, the intrinsic molecular sieving properties of the S-layer lattice did not allow passage of aHL monomers through the S-layer pores to the lipid bilayer [142]. 

The lipid molecule is the main constituent of biological cell membranes. In aqueous solutions amphiphilic lipid molecules form self-assembled structures such as bilayer vesicles, inverse hexagonal and multi-lamellar patterns, and so on. Among these lipid assemblies, construction of the lipid bilayer on a solid substrate has long attracted much attention due to the many possibilities it presents for scientific and practical applications [4]. Use of an artificial lipid bilayer often gives insight into important aspects ofbiological cell membranes [5-7]. The wealth of functionality of this artificial structure is the result of its own chemical and physical properties, for example, two-dimensional fluidity, bio-compatibility, elasticity, and rich chemical composition. 

Afonin S, Durr UHN, Wadhwani P, Salgado J, Ulrich AS (2008) Solid state NMR structure analysis of the antimicrobial peptide gramicidin S in lipid membranes concentration-depen-dent re-alignment and self-assembly as a beta-barrel. Top Curr Chem 273 139-154... 

Of course there are many phenomena that equilibrate on the nanosecond timescale. However, the majority of relevant events take much more time. For example, the ns timescale is much too short to allow for the self-assembly of a set of lipids from a homogeneously distributed state to a lamellar topology. This is the reason why it is necessary to start a simulation as close as possible to the expected equilibrated state. Of course, this is a tricky practice and should be considered as one of the inherent problems of MD. Only recently, this issue was addressed by Marrink [56]. Here the homogeneous state of the lipids was used as the start configuration, and at the end of the simulation an intact bilayer was found. Permeation, transport across a bilayer, and partitioning of molecules from the water to the membrane phase typically take also more time than can be dealt with by MD. We will return to this point below. 

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