Back

Condensation of the influenza viral fusion peptide alters membrane structure and water permeability

Haldar, S.; Rice, A.; Wang, E.; Blank, P. S.; Akimov, S. A.; Galimzyanov, T. R.; Pastor, R. W.; Zimmerberg, J.

2021-08-10 biophysics
10.1101/2021.08.09.455689 bioRxiv
Show abstract

To infect, enveloped viruses employ spike protein, spearheaded by its amphipathic fusion peptide (FP), that upon activation extends out from the viral surface to embed into the target cellular membrane. Here we report that synthesized influenza virus FP are membrane active, generating pores in giant unilamellar vesicles (GUV), and thus potentially explain both influenza virus hemolytic activity and the liposome poration seen in cryo-electron tomography. Experimentally, FP were heterogeneously distributed on the GUV at the time of poration. Consistent with this heterogeneous distribution, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of asymmetric bilayers with different numbers of FP in one leaflet show FP aggregation. At the center of FP aggregates, a profound change in the membrane structure results in thinning, higher water permeability, and curvature. Ultimately, a hybrid bilayer nanodomain can form with one lipidic leaflet and one peptidic leaflet. Membrane elastic theory predicts a reduced barrier to water pore formation when even a dimer of FP thins the membrane as above, and the FP of that dimer tilts, to continue the leaflet bending initiated by the hydrophobic mismatch between the FP dimer and the surrounding lipid.

Matching journals

The top 5 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.