Stimuli-Responsive Membrane Anchor Peptide Nanofoils for Tunable Membrane Association and Lipid Bilayer Fusion
Journal article, 2022

Self-assembled peptide nanostructures with stimuli-responsive features are promising as functional materials. Despite extensive research efforts, water-soluble supramolecular constructs that can interact with lipid membranes in a controllable way are still challenging to achieve. Here, we have employed a short membrane anchor protein motif (GLFD) and coupled it to a spiropyran photoswitch. Under physiological conditions, these conjugates assemble into ∼3.5 nm thick, foil-like peptide bilayer morphologies. Photoisomerization from the closed spiro (SP) form to the open merocyanine (MC) form of the photoswitch triggers rearrangements within the foils. This results in substantial changes in their membrane-binding properties, which also varies sensitively to lipid composition, ranging from reversible nanofoil reformation to stepwise membrane adsorption. The formed peptide layers in the assembly are also able to attach to various liposomes with different surface charges, enabling the fusion of their lipid bilayers. Here, SP-to-MC conversion can be used both to trigger and to modulate the liposome fusion efficiency.

liposomes

spiropyran

lipid bilayer fusion

membrane activity

self-assembly

peptide bilayer

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Published in

ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces

1944-8244 (ISSN) 1944-8252 (eISSN)

Vol. 14 Issue 50 p. 55320-55331

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Subject Categories (SSIF 2011)

Physical Chemistry

Other Chemistry Topics

Biophysics

Identifiers

DOI

10.1021/acsami.2c11946

PubMed

36473125

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Latest update

3/7/2024 9