Binding of basic peptides to acidic lipids in membranes: effects of inserting alanine(s) between the basic residues

We studied the binding of peptides containing five basic residues to membranes containing acidic lipids. The peptides have five arginine or lysine residues and zero, one, or two alanines between the basic groups. The vesicles were formed from mixtures of a zwitterionic lipid, phosphatidylcholine, and an acidic lipid, either phosphatidylserine or phosphatidylglycerol. Measuring the binding using equilibrium dialysis, ultrafiltration, and electrophoretic mobility techniques, we found that all peptides bind to the membranes with a sigmoidal dependence on the mole fraction of acidic lipid. The sigmoidal dependence (Hill coefficient greater than 1 or apparent cooperativity) is due to both electrostatics and reduction of dimensionality and can be described by a simple model that combines Gouy-Chapman-Stern theory with mass action formalism. The adjustable parameter in this model is the microscopic association constant k between a basic residue and an acidic lipid (1 less than k less than 10 M-1). The addition of alanine residues decreases the affinity of the peptides for the membranes; two alanines inserted between the basic residues reduces k 2-fold. Equivalently, the affinity of the peptide for the membrane decreases 10-fold, probably due to a combination of local electrostatic effects and the increased loss of entropy that may occur when the more massive alanine-containing peptides bind to the membrane. The arginine peptides bind more strongly than the lysine peptides: k for an arginine residue is 2-fold higher than for a lysine residue. Our results imply that a cluster of arginine and lysine residues with interspersed electrically neutral amino acids can bind a significant fraction of a cytoplasmic protein to the plasma membrane if the cluster contains more than five basic residues.