Quantitative prediction and measurement of Piezo's membrane footprint.

ABSTRACT: Piezo proteins are mechanosensitive ion channels that can locally curve the membrane into a dome shape [Y. R. Guo, R. MacKinnon, eLife 6, e33660 (2017)]. The curved shape of the Piezo dome is expected to deform the surrounding lipid bilayer membrane into a membrane footprint, which may serve to amplify Piezo's sensitivity to applied forces [C. A. Haselwandter, R. MacKinnon, eLife 7, e41968 (2018)]. If Piezo proteins are embedded in lipid bilayer vesicles, the membrane shape deformations induced by the Piezo dome depend on the vesicle size. We employ here membrane elasticity theory to predict, with no free parameters, the shape of such Piezo vesicles outside the Piezo dome, and show that the predicted vesicle shapes agree quantitatively with the corresponding measured vesicle

SUBMITTER: Haselwandter CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9546538 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature