Speaker
Martin Lindén
(Dept. och Cell and Molecular Biology, Uppsala University)
Description
Many proteins and peptides have an intrinsic capacity to
sense and induce membrane curvature, and play crucial roles
for organizing and remodeling cell membranes. However, the
molecular driving forces behind these processes are not well
understood.
I will describe a new approach to study curvature sensing,
by simulating the direction-dependent interactions of single
molecules with a buckled lipid bilayer. In particular, I
will describe results for three antimicrobial peptides, a
class of membrane-associated molecules that specifically
target and destabilize bacterial membranes, where we find
surprisingly different sensing characteristics that would be
difficult to resolve with other methods. These results
challenge existing continuum theories of curvature sensing
by hydrophobic insertion, and prompts the developments of
more detailed curvature sensing models. Time permitting, I
will also describe ongoing work to improve the computational
efficiency of the method, generalize the theory to describe
the role of structural symmetry for curvature sensing, and
implications for improved experimental approaches.
