Title: Phospholipid Behavior and Dynamics in Curved Biological Membranes
Author: Haoyuan Jing
Date/Time: November 6, 2020 11:00am-1:00pm
Zoom Link: https://umd.zoom.us/j/2663589029
Committee Members
Dr. Siddhartha Das (Chair)
Dr. Silvina Matysiak (Dean’s Represenative)
Dr. Doron Levy
Dr. Amir Riaz
Dr. Peter Chung
Dr. Kumaran Ramamurthi (Special Member)
Abstract: Curvature in biological membranes defines the morphology of cells and organelles and serves key roles in maintaining a variety of cellular functions, enabling trafficking, recruiting and localizing shape-responsive proteins. For example, the bacterial protein SpoVM is a small amphipathic alpha-helical protein that localizes to the outer surface of a forespore, the only convex surface in the mother bacteria. Understanding several of these membrane curvature dependent events rely on a thorough understanding of the properties, energetics, and interactions of the constituent lipid molecules in presence of curvatures.
In this dissertation, we have used molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to explore how the curvature of the lipid bilayer (LBL), a simplified mimic of the cell membrane, affects the packing fraction and diffusivity of lipid molecules in the LBL, energetics of lipid flip flop in the LBL, and lipid desorption from the LBLs. We have also investigated the interaction between LBLs and a small bacterial protein, SpoVM, which was previously shown to preferentially embed in positively curved membranes. Our work started with simulating convex surface, represented by the nanoparticle supported lipid bilayers (NPSLBLs) in MD. We first quantified the self-assembly, structure, and properties of a NPSLBL with a diameter of 20 nm and showed how the type of the nanoparticle (NP) affects the properties of the NPSLBLs. Second, we studied the energetics of lipid flip flop and desorption from LBLs for the cases of planar substrate supported lipid bilayer (PSSLBL) and NPSLBL. Finally, we investigated the energetics of SpoVM desorption from the PSSLBL and the NPSLBL providing clues to the fundamental driving forces dictating the curvature sensing of SpoVM.