Special interaction of anionic phosphatidic acid promotes high secondary structure in tetrameric potassium channel

Anionic phosphatidic acid (PA) has been shown to stabilize and bind stronger than phosphatidylglycerol via electrostatic and hydrogen bond interaction with the positively charged residues of potassium channel KcsA. However, the effects of these lipids on KcsA folding or secondary structure are not clear. In this study, the secondary structure analyses of KcsA potassium channel was carried out using circular dichroism spectroscopy. It was found that PA interaction leads to increases in α-helical and β-sheet content of KcsA protein. In PA, KcsA α-helical structure was further stabilized by classical membrane-active cosolvent trifluoroethanol followed by reduction in the β-sheet content indicating cooperative transformation from the β-sheet to an α-helical structure. The data further uncover the role of anionic PA in KcsA folding and provide mechanism by which strong hydrogen bonds/electrostatic interaction among PA headgroup and basic residues on lipid binding domains may induce high helical structure thereby altering the protein folding and increasing the stability of tetrameric assembly.