Smart lipid vesicles to understand cell membrane adhesion

Salvador Tomas (primary)
Biological Sciences
Birkbeck
Emmanuel Boucrot (secondary)
Structural Molecular Biology
University College London

Abstract

Cell membrane adhesion is a key event in many cellular processes, but difficult to study in molecular detail in the context of a whole cell. The aim of this project is developing smart lipid vesicles that attach to each other and to cells in response to chemical or physical stimuli. By using simple chemical receptors and ligands instead of the proteins responsible for cell adhesion, will be able to study in detail the adhesion process and derive a mathematical model describing it. The power of the model will be showcased by designing a vesicle that attaches selectively to a cell.


References

1. Modulation of In-Membrane Receptor Clustering upon Binding of Multivalent Ligands”. A. Grochmal, E. Ferrero, L. Milanesi and S.Tomas J Am. Chem. Soc. 2013, 135 , 10172

2. Mutual Modulation between Embedded Receptor Clustering and Ligand Binding in Lipid Membranes”. S.Tomas, L. Milanesi, Nature Chem. 2010, 2, 1077

3. Boucrot E. et al. (2015) ‘Endophilin marks and controls a clathrin-independent pathway of endocytosis’ Nature 517(7535):460-

4. Boucrot E. et al. (2012) ‘Membrane fission is promoted by insertions of amphipathic helices and is restricted by crescent BAR domains’ Cell 149(1):124-36


BBSRC Area
Molecules, cells and industrial biotechnology
Area of Biology
Cell BiologyChemical Biology
Techniques & Approaches
BiochemistryBiophysicsChemistryGeneticsImage ProcessingMathematics / StatisticsMicroscopy / ElectrophysiologyMolecular BiologySimulation / Modelling