Cooperativity of α-Synuclein Binding to Lipid Membranes.

ABSTRACT: Cooperative binding is a key feature of metabolic pathways, signaling, and transport processes. It provides tight regulation over a narrow concentration interval of a ligand, thus enabling switching to be triggered by small concentration variations. The data presented in this work reveal strong positive cooperativity of α-synuclein binding to phospholipid membranes. Fluorescence cross-correlation spectroscopy, confocal microscopy, and cryo-TEM results show that in excess of vesicles α-synuclein does not distribute randomly but binds only to a fraction of all available vesicles. Furthermore, α-synuclein binding to a supported lipid bilayer observed with total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy displays a much steeper dependence of bound protein on total protein concentration

SUBMITTER: Makasewicz K 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8291482 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature