Local accumulation of diacylglycerol alters membrane properties nonlinearly due to its transbilayer activity
- Campomanes, Pablo Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
- Zoni, Valeria Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
- Vanni, Stefano Department of Biology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
-
2019
Published in:
- Communications Chemistry. - 2019, vol. 2, no. 1, p. 72
English
Diacylglycerols (DAGs) are bioactive lipids that are ubiquitously present at low concentrations in cellular membranes. Upon the activation of lipid remodeling enzymes such as phospholipase C and phosphatidic acid phosphatase, DAG concentration increases, leading to a disruption of the lamellar phase of lipid membranes. To investigate the structural origin of these phenomena, here we develop a coarse-grained model for DAGs that is able to correctly reproduce its physicochemical properties, including interfacial tension and flip-flop rate. We find that even at low concentrations a nonnegligible percentage of DAG molecules occupies the interleaflet space. At high concentrations, DAG molecules undergo a phase- separation process from lamellar lipids, segregating in DAG-only blisters and effectively reducing the DAG surface pool available to peripheral enzymes. Our results allow for a better understanding of the role of DAGs in cellular membranes and provide a new tool for the quantitative estimation of low-abundance lipids on membrane properties.
- Faculty
- Faculté des sciences et de médecine
- Department
- Département de Biologie
- Language
-
- English
- Classification
- Biological sciences
- License
- License undefined
- Identifiers
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- RERO DOC 326949
- DOI 10.1038/s42004-019-0175-7
- Persistent URL
- https://folia.unifr.ch/unifr/documents/308036
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