Biology subjects

Hoogerheide, D. P.

Publications and source records attributed to Hoogerheide, D. P..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2022

Restricting α-Synuclein Transport into Mitochondria by Inhibition of α-Synuclein-VDAC Complexation as a Potential Therapeutic Target for Parkinson's Disease Treatment

Involvement of alpha-synuclein (Syn) in Parkinsons disease (PD) is complicated and difficult to trace on cellular and molecular levels. Recently we established that Syn can regulate mitochondrial function by voltage-activated complexation with the Voltage-Dependent Anion Channel (VDAC) of the outer mitochondrial membrane. When complexed with Syn, the VDAC pore is partially blocked, reducing the transport of ATP/ADP and other metabolites. Further, Syn can translocate into the mitochondria through VDAC, where it interferes with mitochondrial respiration. Recruitment of Syn to the VDAC-containing lipid membrane appears to be a crucial prerequisite for both the blockage and translocation processes. Here we report an inhibitory effect of HK2p, a small membrane-binding peptide from the mitochondria-targeting N-terminus of hexokinase 2, on the Syn membrane binding, and hence on Syn complex formation with VDAC and translocation through it. In electrophysiology experiments, addition of HK2p at micromolar concentrations to the same side of the membrane as Syn results in dramatic reduction of the frequency of blockage events in a concentration-dependent manner, reporting on complexation inhibition. Using two complementary methods of measuring protein-membrane binding, bilayer overtone analysis and fluorescence correlation spectroscopy, we found that HK2p induces detachment of Syn from lipid membranes. Experiments with live HeLa cells using proximity ligation assay confirmed that HK2p impedes Syn entry into mitochondria. Our results demonstrate that it is possible to regulate Syn-VDAC complexation by a rationally designed peptide, thus suggesting new avenues in the search for peptide therapeutics to alleviate Syn mitochondrial toxicity in PD and other synucleinopathies.

biophysics↗

bioRxiv2021

MspA Porin as a Local Nanopore Probe for Membrane-bound Proteins

Nanopore sensing is based on detection and analysis of nanopore transient conductance changes induced by analyte capture. We have recently shown that -Synuclein (Syn), an intrinsically disordered, membrane-active, neuronal protein implicated in Parkinson disease, can be reversibly captured by the VDAC nanopore. The capture process is a highly voltage dependent complexation of the two proteins where transmembrane potential drives the polyanionic C-terminal domain of Syn into VDAC--exactly the mechanism by which generic nanopore-based interrogation of proteins and polynucleotides proceeds. The complex formation, and the motion of Syn in the nanopore, thus may be expected to be only indirectly dependent on the pore identity. Here, we confirm this prediction by demonstrating that when VDAC is replaced with a different transmembrane pore, the engineered mycobacterial porin M2MspA, all the qualitative features of the Syn/nanopore interaction are preserved. The rate of Syn capture by M2MspA rises exponentially with the applied field, while the residence time displays a crossover behavior, indicating that at voltages >50 mV M2MspA-bound Syn largely undergoes translocation to the other side of the membrane. The translocation is directly confirmed using the selectivity tag method, in which the polyanionic C-terminal and neutral N-terminal regions of Syn alter the selectivity of the M2MspA channel differently, allowing direct discrimination of translocation vs retraction for single Syn molecules. We thus prove that the physical model of the motion of disordered protein chains in the nanopore confinement and the selectivity tag technique are not limited to VDAC but are broadly applicable to nanopore-based protein detection, analysis, and separation technologies.

biophysics↗

bioRxiv2021

Highly basic clusters in the HSV-1 nuclear egress complex drive membrane budding by inducing lipid ordering

During replication of herpesviruses, capsids escape from the nucleus into the cytoplasm by budding at the inner nuclear membrane. This unusual process is mediated by the viral nuclear egress complex (NEC) that deforms the membrane around the capsid by oligomerizing into a hexagonal, membrane-bound scaffold. Here, we found that highly basic membrane-proximal regions (MPRs) of the NEC alter lipid order by inserting into the lipid headgroups and also promote negative Gaussian curvature. We also find that the electrostatic interactions between the MPRs and the membranes are essential for membrane deformation. One of the MPRs is phosphorylated by a viral kinase during infection, and the corresponding phosphomimicking mutations block capsid nuclear egress. We show that the same phosphomimicking mutations disrupt the NEC/membrane interactions and inhibit NEC-mediated budding in vitro, providing a biophysical explanation for the in-vivo phenomenon. Our data suggest that the NEC generates negative membrane curvature by both lipid ordering and protein scaffolding and that phosphorylation acts as an "off" switch that inhibits the membrane-budding activity of the NEC to prevent capsid-less budding.

microbiology↗