Speaker
Description
Lipid compositional asymmetry across the leaflets of the plasma membrane is a ubiquitous feature in eukaryotic cells. How this asymmetry is attained is thought to be through the sidedness of lipid biosynthesis as well as through active transport of lipids across the membrane. This strategy is helped by the slow diffusion of long tail phospholipids and sphingolipids through the lipid bilayer which takes hours.
Recently, however, we found that lipid compositional asymmetry can occur naturally in model systems consisting of a saturated lipid, an [1]. Our goal is to understand the role of lipid composition in the emergence of lipid composition asymmetry across leaflets. We use small angle neutron scattering (SANS) to track membrane leaflet compositional asymmetry by monitoring the unequal distribution of deuterated and perdeuterated lipids species. In addition to SANS, we support our results with Magic Angle Spinning (MAS) NMR.
[1] Y. Zhu et al., “Unexpected asymmetric distribution of cholesterol and phospholipids in equilibrium model membranes” Bioph
ysical Journal, vol. 123, pp. 3923–3934, Nov. 19, 2024. doi: 10.1016/jtmag.2023.3332210.
