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Updated: Jul 4, 2026

Reconstitution of Membrane-Tethered Minimal Actin Cortices on Supported Lipid Bilayers
Published on: July 12, 2022
Minimal F-actin cytoskeletal system for planar supported phospholipid bilayers
Richard J Barfoot1, Khizar H Sheikh, Benjamin R G Johnson
1School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
Preferential binding of F-actin to lipid bilayers containing ponticulin was investigated on both planar supported bilayers and on a cholesterol-based tethering system. The transmembrane protein ponticulin in Dictyostelium discoideum is known to provide a direct link between the actin cytoskeleton and the cell membrane ( Wuestehube, L. J. ; Luna, E. J. J. Cell Biol. 1987, 105, 1741- 1751 ). Purification of ponticulin has allowed an in vitro model of the F-actin cytoskeletal scaffold system to be formed and investigated by AFM, epi-fluorescence microscopy, surface plasmon resonance (SPR), and quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation (QCM-D). Single filament features of F-actin bound to the ponticulin containing lipid bilayer are shown by AFM to have a pitch of 37.3 +/- 1.1 nm and a filament height of 7.0 +/- 1.6 nm. The complementary techniques of QCM-D and SPR were used to obtain dissociation constants for the interaction of F-actin with ponticulin containing bilayers, giving 10.5 +/- 1.7 microM for a physisorbed bilayer and 10.8 +/- 3.6 microM for a tethered bilayer, respectively.
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