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Mechanism of Formation and Functional Properties of Lipoprotein Discs Stabilized by Amphiphilic Maleic Acid-Containing Alternating Copolymers

Subject Area Biophysics
Term from 2018 to 2021
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 388943162
 
Final Report Year 2022

Final Report Abstract

The application of copolymers in which maleic acid units alternate with (variable) hydrocarbon units (MACPs) led to an important methodological breakthrough in membrane protein research. Various MACPs were found to be able to solubilize membrane proteins from both artificial and natural lipid bilayers, forming disc-shaped lipid/lipoprotein particles enclosed by MACPs with uniform diameters in the range of 10-30 nm. The enzymes appear to remain functional in the MACP particles. Therefore, even those membrane proteins that are unstable in the presence of detergents become now amenable to techniques that require homogeneous water-soluble (single) particles. Optimized protocols of protein extraction by MACPs should yield native-like environments within MACP-lipid/lipoprotein particles. The present project aimed to draw a physico-chemical picture of formation of MACP- encased lipid/lipoprotein nanoparticles, to analyze their components interactions and to evaluate possible impact of the restricted lipid environment in these particles on the conformational dynamics of the encased membrane protein. Molecular dynamics simulations of styrene maleic acid (SMA) copolymer with lipid bilayers showed the formation of discoidal SMA lipid particles (SMALPs) with statistical and periodic 3:1 SMA copolymers and revealed that the mechanisms of interaction of SMA copolymers with lipid bilayers could be different depending on the composition and chain length of SMA copolymers. Compared to liposomes in SMALPs the lipid dynamics is restricted as probed by the reorientational dynamics of lipid bound nitroxides. In diisobutylene/maleic acid lipid particles (DIBMALPs) of different lipid composition the lipid dynamics was found to be independent from nanoparticle size, resembling that in liposomes. Photocycle and conformational dynamics of the reconstituted light sensor NpSRII/NpHtrII complex, which served here as a model system, are generally preserved in SMALPs and DIBMALPs. The protein was found to be less flexible in SMALPs with large conformational changes (millisecond time range) of the transmembrane region of NpSRII being affected. Optimizing our protocols allowed expanding the application of MACPs and lead to successful solubilization of membrane proteins expressed in mammalian or yeast cells. Thus, the full-length poreforming α-subunits hKCNH5 and hKCNQ1 of human neuronal and cardiac voltage-gated potassium channels, and the fusion construct of hKCNQ1 with its regulatory transmembrane KCNE1 β-subunit (hKCNE1-hKCNQ1) could be reconstituted into SMALPs as tetramers. Structural information of the yeast cell wall sensor Wsc1 could be obtained upon its detergent-free extraction from the yeast plasma membrane into a native-like membrane environment by SMA. Thus the application of SMALPs and DIBMALPs provide new prospects for in vitro structural, dynamic and functional studies of membrane proteins, keeping in mind possible restrictions of conformational dynamics in the transmembrane region of the encaged proteins.

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