Lipid dependence on fusion and fusion-related processes
Title: Lipid dependence on fusion and fusion-related processes
DNr: SNIC 2014/1-96
Project Type: SNIC Medium Compute
Principal Investigator: Per Larsson <per.r.larsson@uu.se>
Affiliation: Kungliga Tekniska högskolan
Duration: 2014-03-29 – 2015-04-01
Classification: 10601
Keywords:

Abstract

In simulations, we have demonstrated that lipid protrusion near a mutant fusion peptides correlates with the ability of that hemagglutinin mutant to drive lipid mixing, and with lipid mixing rates (Larsson and Kasson, 2013). This correlation supports the hypothesis that the transition state for stalk formation involves lipid tail protrusion and suggests that tail protrusion may indeed be a good marker for fusion and an important first step in the fusion process. Here we will extend those results to investigate the role of membrane composition. We will simulate a number of lipid bilayers with different lipid composition (varying the content of different lipids such as POPC, POPE and sterols such as cholesterol and derivates) and with active fusion peptides. By doing a systematic investigation we can readily address the role of lipid composition on membrane fusogenic properties.