Role of interactions at the lipid-water interface for domain formation

The lipid-water interface is critical for the packing of lipid molecules in membranes. We have demonstrated that lateral phase separation in membranes can be driven by electrostatic interactions such as those involving charged lipid species and oppositely charged peptides, in addition to hydration effects at the lipid-water interface. By using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), circular dichroism and fluorescence spectroscopy we have shown that binding of a 21-amino acid peptide containing six positively charged arginine residues to mixed phosphatidylcholine (PC)/phosphatidylglycerol (PG) membranes results in a conformational change in the peptide from a random coil to a helical structure and causes the formation of domains of negatively charged PG. Binding of the peptide to PG membranes disorders the lipid hydrocarbon chains. The strength of lipid-peptide binding at the interface, the conformational change in the peptide, and domain formation with the negatively charged lipid are coupled energetically. The lipid-peptide association constant is lower for membranes containing 20 mol% PG in PC/PG mixtures than for 100% PG membranes. We suggest that one of the factors that lower the association constant in PC/PG membranes is entropic energy of formation of PG domains. Besides electrostatic interactions, hydration of lipids is important for domain formation. We have shown that dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine and dipalmitoylphosphatidylethanolamine separate under conditions of decreased water activity. Furthermore, water activity controls lipid packing stress in the hydrocarbon core and the headgroups of membranes as demonstrated by induction of an inverse-hexagonal-to-lamellar phase transition in dioleoylphosphatidylethanolamine.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)