Control of lipid domain organization by a biomimetic contractile actomyosin cortex
Abstract
The cell membrane is a heterogeneously organized composite with lipid-protein micro-domains. The contractile actin cortex may govern the lateral organization of these domains in the cell membrane, yet the underlying mechanisms are not known. Previously we have reconstituted minimal actin cortices (MACs; Vogel et al, 2013b). Here we investigate the effects of rearranging actin filaments on the lateral membrane organization by introducing various phase-separated lipid mono- and bilayers to the MACs. The addition of actin filaments reorganized membrane domains. We found that the process reached a steady state where line tension and lateral crowding balanced. Moreover, the phase boundary allowed myosin driven actin filament rearrangements to actively move individual lipid domains, often accompanied by their shape change, fusion or splitting. Our findings illustrate how actin cortex remodeling in cells may control dynamic rearrangements of lipids and other molecules inside domains without directly binding to actin filaments.
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Author details
Funding
Daimler und Benz Stiftung (32-09/11)
- Sven Kenjiro Vogel
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
- Sven Kenjiro Vogel
- Ferdinand Greiss
- Alena Khmelinskaia
- Petra Schwille
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
- Sven Kenjiro Vogel
- Petra Schwille
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SCHW716/8-1)
- Sven Kenjiro Vogel
- Petra Schwille
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2017, Vogel et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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