Dissemin is shutting down on January 1st, 2025

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Elsevier, Biophysical Journal, 7(95), p. 3287-3294, 2008

DOI: 10.1529/biophysj.108.137323

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SP-A Permeabilizes Lipopolysaccharide Membranes by Forming Protein Aggregates that Extract Lipids from the Membrane

This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

Surfactant protein A (SP-A) is known to cause bacterial permeabilization. The aim of this work was to gain insight into the mechanism by which SP-A induces permeabilization of rough lipopolysaccharide (Re-LPS) membranes. In the presence of calcium, large interconnected aggregates of fluorescently labeled TR-SP-A were observed on the surface of Re-LPS films by epifluorescence microscopy. Using Re-LPS monolayer relaxation experiments at constant surface pressure, we demonstrated that SP-A induced Re-LPS molecular loss by promoting the formation of three-dimensional lipid-protein aggregates in Re-LPS membranes. This resulted in decreased van der Waals interactions between Re-LPS acyl chains, as determined by differential scanning calorimetry, which rendered the membrane leaky. We also showed that the coexistence of gel and fluid lipid phases within the Re-LPS membrane conferred susceptibility to SP-A-mediated permeabilization. Taken together, our results seem to indicate that the calcium-dependent permeabilization of Re-LPS membranes by SP-A is related to the extraction of LPS molecules from the membrane due to the formation of calcium-mediated protein aggregates that contain LPS.