Membrane lipids asymmetry

LIPID PHASE TRANSITION KINETICS Membrane lipid asymmetry,... 

Asymmetry in the lipid distribution over the bilayer could also be controlled in a similar way by the lateral packing pressure, which is likely to differ between constituent monolayers, due to the distinct chemical environments inside and outside the membrane. The enzymes involved may also be distributed asymmetrically. A configuration with constant, but nonzero, mean curvature, shown in Fig. 5.7, reflects such a situation. A membrane-spatming protein can then be viewed as a sensor of the lateral packing pressure in both monolayers. This speculation has some experimental justification. In a recent study of chromaffin granules, trans-membrane lipid asymmetry was shown to be induced by an ATP-dependent "flippase" [35]. 

In addition to the large numbers of chemically distinct lipid species that occur within a prokaryotic or a eukaryotic cell, there is another level of complexity — the asymmetric distribution of the lipids across the plane of the bilayer. Two striking examples of membrane lipid asymmetry were originally described in the red blood cell membrane (A. Verkleij, 1973), and the cytoplasmic membrane of Bacillus megaterium (J. Rothman, 1977). The data in Fig. 1... 

Proteins that can flip phospholipids from one side of a bilayer to the other have also been identified in several tissues (Figure 9.11). Called flippases, these proteins reduce the half-time for phospholipid movement across a membrane from 10 days or more to a few minutes or less. Some of these systems may operate passively, with no required input of energy, but passive transport alone cannot establish or maintain asymmetric transverse lipid distributions. However, rapid phospholipid movement from one monolayer to the other occurs in an ATP-dependent manner in erythrocytes. Energy-dependent lipid flippase activity may be responsible for the creation and maintenance of transverse lipid asymmetries. 

The mechanisms involved in the establishment of lipid asymmetry are not well understood. The enzymes involved in the synthesis of phospholipids are located on the cytoplasmic side of microsomal membrane vesicles. Translocases (flippases) exist that transfer certain phospholipids (eg, phosphatidylcholine) from the inner to the outer leaflet. Specific proteins that preferentially bind individual phospholipids also appear to be... 

Methods used to demonstrate the existence of membrane phospholipid asymmetry, such as chemical labelling and susceptibility to hydrolysis or modification by phospholipases and other enzymes, are rmsuitable for dynamic studies because the rates of chemical and biochemical reactions are of a different order compared to the transmembrane translocahon of the phospholipids. Indirect methods have therefore been developed to measure the translocation rate which are consequent on the loss of membrane phospholipid asymmetry. Thus time scales appropriate to rates of lipid scrambling under resting conditions or when the forces preserving the asymmetric phospholipid distribution are disturbed can be monitored. Generally the methods rely on detecting the appearance of phosphatidylserine on the surface of cells. Methods of demonstrating Upid translocation in mammalian cells has been the subject of a recent review (Bevers etal., 1999). 

Tsui, F.C., Sundberg, S.A. and Hubbell, W.L., 1990, Distribution of charge on photoreceptor disc membranes and implications for charged lipid asymmetry. Biophys. J. 57 85-97. 

In many eukaryotic plasma membranes, PS resides in the inner leaflet (Schroit and Zwaal, 1991 Zachowski, 1993). This transbilayer distribution of membrane hpids is not a static situation but a result of balance between the inward and outward translocation of phospholipids across the membranes. Recent studies showed that the transbilayer lipid asymmetry is regulated by several lipid transporter proteins, such as aminophospholipid translocase (Daleke and Lyles, 2000), ATP-binding cassette transporter family (van Helvoort et al, 1996 Klein et al, 1999), and phospholipid scramblase (Zhou et al, 1997 Zhao et al, 1998). An increment of intracellular due to cell activation, cell injury, and apoptosis affects the activities of these transporters, resulting in exposure of PS (Koopman et al, 1994 Verhoven et al, 1995) and PE (Emoto et al, 1997) on the cell surface. 

Daleke, D.L. Regulation of transbilayer plasma membrane phospholipid asymmetry. J. Lipid Res. 

Plasma membrane lipids are asymmetrically distributed between the two monolayers of the bilayer, although the asymmetry, unlike that of membrane proteins, is not absolute. In the plasma membrane of the erythrocyte, for example, choline-containing lipids (phosphatidylcholine and sphingomyelin) are typically found in the outer (extracellular or exoplasmic) leaflet (Fig. 11-5), whereas phosphatidylserine, phosphatidyl-ethanolamine, and the phosphatidylinositols are much more common in the inner (cytoplasmic) leaflet. Changes in the distribution of lipids between plasma membrane leaflets have biological consequences. For example, only when the phosphatidylserine in the plasma membrane moves into the outer leaflet is a platelet able to play its role in formation of a blood clot. For many other cells types, phosphatidylserine exposure on the outer surface marks a cell for destruction by programmed cell death. 

In the case of red blood cells, it is assumed that the progressive loss of lipid asymmetry, possibly associated with the entry of calcium, is a signal that the cell is aging. This signal, in turn, is recognized by macrophages and leads to cell destruction. Dmgs which, for example, compete for calcium bound to phosphatidylserine could interfere with these processes and many other Ca2+-dependent processes such as protein kinase C activation. The influence of asymmetry in membranes of different phospholipid composition on the fusion of liposomes has been studied and reported [22]. 

Membrane proteins have a unique orientation because they are synthesized and inserted into the membrane in an asymmetric manner. This absolute asymmetry is preserved because membrane proteins do not rotate from one side of the membrane to the other and because membranes are always synthesized by the growth of preexisting membranes. Lipids, too, are asymmetrically distributed as a consequence of their mode of biosynthesis, but this asymmetry is usually not absolute, except for glycolipids. In the red-blood-cell membrane, sphingomyelin and phosphatidyl choline are preferentially located in the outer leaflet of the bilayer, whereas phosphatidyl ethanolamine and phosphatidyl serine are located mainly in the inner leaflet. Large amounts of cholesterol are present in both leaflets. 

The fundamental function of biological membranes is to separate components and to maintain different compositions of solutes in the separate spaces. Therefore, essentially every biological membrane functions in energy transduction. The maintenance of the different compositions in the two sides of the membrane is based on its functional asymmetry. The degree of asymmetry varies from uneven distribution of lipids in the bilayer up to absolute polarity of large protein complexes in the membrane. This asymmetry arises from the vectorial assembly of the individual protein complexes into the membranes in vivo where a high degree of specificity is maintained. 

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