Transbilayer movement of fluorescent phospholipids in Bacillus megaterium membrane vesicles

We investigated the transbilayer movement or flip-flop of phospholipids in vesicles derived from the cytoplasmic membrane of Bacillus megaterium. Since common assay techniques were found to be inapplicable to the Bacillus system, we exploited and elaborated a newly described method in which fluorescent phospholipids (1-myristoyl-2-C6-NBD phospholipids) are used as tracers to monitor flip-flop. These lipids were introduced into Bacillus vesicles from synthetic donor vesicles containing a fluorescence quencher. Transport was measured by monitoring the increase in fluorescence as the tracers departed the quenched environment of the donor vesicle and entered first the outer membrane leaflet and subsequently the inner leaflet of Bacillus vesicles. Independent experiments involving cobalt quenching of NBD fluorescence provided results consistent with the existence of pools of fluorescent phospholipid in the outer and inner leaflets of Bacillus vesicles at the completion of transport. Using the assay we show that phospholipid flip-flop in Bacillus vesicles occurs rapidly (half-time approximately 30 s at 37 degrees C) with no preference for a particular phospholipid headgroup and that it is sensitive to proteolysis. We also establish that flip-flop does not occur in synthetic phospholipid vesicles or vesicles made from Bacillus phospholipids. We conclude that Bacillus vesicles possess the ability to promote rapid transbilayer movement of phospholipids, and that the transport is probably protein (flippase)-mediated.