IBR   13079
INSTITUTO DE BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR Y CELULAR DE ROSARIO
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
Sensing membrane thickness: Lessons learned from cold stress
Autor/es:
SAITA, EMILIO; ALBANESI, DANIELA; DE MENDOZA, DIEGO
Revista:
BIOCHIMICA AND BIOPHYSICA ACTA
Editorial:
Amsterdam [etc.] Elsevier Pub. Co.
Referencias:
Lugar: Amsterdam; Año: 2016
ISSN:
0006-3002
Resumen:
The lipid bilayer component of biological membranes is important for the distribution, organization, and function of bilayer spanning proteins. These physical barriers are subjected to bilayer perturbations. As a consequence, nature has evolved proteins that are able to sense changes in the bilayer properties and transform these lipid-mediated stimuli into intracellular signals. A structural feature that most signal-transducing membrane-embedded proteins have in common is one or more α-helices that traverse the lipid bilayer. Because of the interaction with the surrounding lipids, the organization of these transmembrane helices will be sensitive to membrane properties, like hydrophobic thickness. The helices may adapt to the lipids in different ways, which in turn can influence the structure and function of the intact membrane proteins. We review recent insights into the molecular basis of thermosensing via changes in membrane thickness and consider examples in which the hydrophobic matching can be demonstrated using reconstituted membrane systems.