0000000000014296
AUTHOR
Félix M. Goñi
In Vitro Techniques
Driven in part by the development of genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics as new disciplines, there has been a tremendous resurgence of interest in physical methods to investigate macromolecular structure and function in the context of living cells. This volume in Methods in Cell Biology is devoted to biophysical techniques in vitro and their applications to cellular biology. The volume covers methods-oriented chapters on fundamental as well as cutting-edge techniques in molecular and cellular biophysics.This book is directed toward the broad audience of cell biologists, biophysicists, pharmacologists, and molecular biologists who employ classical and modern biophysical technologies or …
Calcium-dependent conformational changes of membrane-bound Ebola fusion peptide drive vesicle fusion
AbstractThe fusogenic subdomain of the Ebola virus envelope glycoprotein is an internal sequence located ca. 20 residues downstream the N-terminus of the glycoprotein transmembrane subunit. Partitioning of the Ebola fusion peptide into membranes containing phosphatidylinositol in the absence of Ca2+ stabilizes an α-helical conformation, and gives rise to vesicle efflux but not vesicle fusion. In the presence of millimolar Ca2+ the membrane-bound peptide adopts an extended β-structure, and induces inter-vesicle mixing of lipids. The peptide conformational polymorphism may be related to the flexibility of the virus–cell intermembrane fusogenic complex.