Conformational analysis of lipid-associating proteins in a lipid environment

Two major types of helical structures have been identified in lipid-associating proteins, being either amphipathic or transmembrane domains. A conformational analysis was carried out to characterize some of the properties of these helices. These calculations were performed both on isolated helices and in a lipid environment. According to the results of this analysis, the orientation of the line joining the hydrophobic and hydrophilic centers of the helix seems to determine the orientation of the helix at the lipid/water interface. The calculation of this parameter should be useful to discriminate between an amphipathic helix, parallel to the interface and a transmembrane helix orientated perpendicularly. The membrane-spanning helices are completely immersed in the phospholipid bilayer and their length corresponds to about the thickness of the hydrophobic core of the DPPC bilayer. The energy of interaction, expressed per phospholipid is significantly higher for the transmembrane compared to the amphipathic helices. For the membrane-spanning helices the mean energy of interaction is higher than the interaction energy between two phospholipids, while it is lower for most amphipathic helices. This might account for the stability of these protein-anchoring domains. This computer modeling approach should usefully complement the statistical analysis carried out on these helices, based on their hydrophobicity and hydrophobic moment. It represents a more refined analysis of the domains identified by the prediction techniques and stress the functional character of lipid-associating domains in membrane proteins as well as in soluble plasma lipoproteins.