Issue 51, 2016, Issue in Progress

The effect of POPC acyl chains packing by aromatic amino acid methyl esters investigated by ATR-FTIR combined with QM calculations

Abstract

Aromatic residues play important roles in modulating the function of proteins and binding of proteins to biomembranes. However, the effect of small molecules which contain aromatic residues on the packing of unsaturated lipid acyl chains and the dynamics properties in membrane bilayers remains unclear. The membrane interactions of a series of amino acid methyl esters have been investigated to establish how different amino acids influence lipid acyl chains packing. Attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscopic (ATR-FTIR) measurements show that the [double bond, length as m-dash]CH and C[double bond, length as m-dash]C stretching vibrational bands of 2-oleoyl-1-pamlitoyl-sn-glyecro-3-phosphocholine (POPC) present evident red-shifts when aromatic amino acid methyl esters are mixed into membrane bilayers. Quantum mechanical (QM) calculations further demonstrate that the red shifts of the [double bond, length as m-dash]CH and C[double bond, length as m-dash]C stretching modes for POPC acyl chains are not through a direct interaction between the side chain groups and the HC[double bond, length as m-dash]CH motif but are mainly caused by the conformational change of POPC acyl chains, in which the HC[double bond, length as m-dash]CH motif is packed closed to the other one of an adjacent acyl chain with enhancement by dispersion interactions. The implication of these findings is that the packing of POPC acyl chains can be significantly influenced by aromatic amino acid methyl esters. This work may provide valuable insight into the effect on the lipid acyl chains packing by small molecules interacting with membranes and offer possibilities for the dynamic control of membrane fusion and binding of proteins to the membrane.

Graphical abstract: The effect of POPC acyl chains packing by aromatic amino acid methyl esters investigated by ATR-FTIR combined with QM calculations

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
05 Mar 2016
Accepted
03 May 2016
First published
05 May 2016

RSC Adv., 2016,6, 45569-45577

The effect of POPC acyl chains packing by aromatic amino acid methyl esters investigated by ATR-FTIR combined with QM calculations

B. Peng, X. Ding, C. Sun, W. Liu, J. Z. H. Zhang and X. Zhao, RSC Adv., 2016, 6, 45569 DOI: 10.1039/C6RA05903A

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