TY  - JOUR
A1  - Flinner, Nadine
A1  - Schleiff, Enrico
T1  - Dynamics of the glycophorin A dimer in membranes of native-like composition uncovered by coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations
T2  - PLoS One
N2  - Membranes are central for cells as borders to the environment or intracellular organelle definition. They are composed of and harbor different molecules like various lipid species and sterols, and they are generally crowded with proteins. The membrane system is very dynamic and components show lateral, rotational and translational diffusion. The consequence of the latter is that phase separation can occur in membranes in vivo and in vitro. It was documented that molecular dynamics simulations of an idealized plasma membrane model result in formation of membrane areas where either saturated lipids and cholesterol (liquid-ordered character, Lo) or unsaturated lipids (liquid-disordered character, Ld) were enriched. Furthermore, current discussions favor the idea that proteins are sorted into the liquid-disordered phase of model membranes, but experimental support for the behavior of isolated proteins in native membranes is sparse. To gain insight into the protein behavior we built a model of the red blood cell membrane with integrated glycophorin A dimer. The sorting and the dynamics of the dimer were subsequently explored by coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations. In addition, we inspected the impact of lipid head groups and the presence of cholesterol within the membrane on the dynamics of the dimer within the membrane. We observed that cholesterol is important for the formation of membrane areas with Lo and Ld character. Moreover, it is an important factor for the reproduction of the dynamic behavior of the protein found in its native environment. The protein dimer was exclusively sorted into the domain of Ld character in the model red blood cell plasma membrane. Therefore, we present structural information on the glycophorin A dimer distribution in the plasma membrane in the absence of other factors like e.g. lipid anchors in a coarse grain resolution.
Y1  - 2015
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/37979
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-379796
SN  - 1932-6203
N1  - Copyright: © 2015 Flinner, Schleiff. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited
VL  - 10
IS  - (7): e0133999
SP  - 1
EP  - 16
PB  - PLoS
CY  - Lawrence, Kan.
ER  -