Generation of Cubic Membranes by Controlled Homotypic Interaction of
Membrane Proteins in the Endoplasmic
Reticulum |
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Authors: | Daniel Lingwood Sebastian Schuck Charles Ferguson Mathias J Gerl and Kai Simons |
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Institution: | ‡Max Planck Institute for Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, 01307 Dresden, Germany, the §Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of California at San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94158, and the ¶Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia |
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Abstract: | Cell membranes predominantly consist of lamellar lipid bilayers. When
studied in vitro, however, many membrane lipids can exhibit
non-lamellar morphologies, often with cubic symmetries. An open issue is how
lipid polymorphisms influence organelle and cell shape. Here, we used
controlled dimerization of artificial membrane proteins in mammalian tissue
culture cells to induce an expansion of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) with
cubic symmetry. Although this observation emphasizes ER architectural
plasticity, we found that the changed ER membrane became sequestered into
large autophagic vacuoles, positive for the autophagy protein LC3. Autophagy
may be targeting irregular membrane shapes and/or aggregated protein. We
suggest that membrane morphology can be controlled in cells.The observation that simple mixtures of amphiphilic (polar) lipids and
water yield a rich flora of phase structures has opened a long-standing debate
as to whether such membrane polymorphisms are relevant for living organisms
(1–7).
Lipid bilayers with planar geometry, termed lamellar symmetry, dominate the
membrane structure of cells. However, this architecture comprises only a
fraction of the structures seen with in vitro lipid-water systems
(7–11).
The propensity to form lamellar bilayers (a property exclusive to
cylindrically shaped lipids) is flanked by a continuum of lipid structures
that occur in a number of exotic and probably non-physiological
non-bilayer configurations
(3,
12). However, certain lipids,
particularly those with smaller head groups and more bulky hydrocarbon chains,
can adopt bilayered non-lamellar phases called cubic phases. Here the
bilayer is curved everywhere in the form of saddle shapes corresponding to an
energetically favorable minimal surface of zero mean curvature
(1,
7). Because a substantial
number of the lipids present in biological membranes, when studied as
individual pure lipids, form cubic phases
(13), cubic membranes have
received particular interest in cell biology.Since the application of electron microscopy
(EM)3 to the study of
cell ultrastructure, unusual membrane morphologies have been reported for
virtually every organelle (14,
15). However, interpretation
of three-dimensional structures from two-dimensional electron micrographs is
not easy (16). In seminal
work, Landh (17) developed the
method of direct template correlative matching, a technique that unequivocally
assesses the presence of cubic membranes in biological specimens
(16). Cubic phases adopt
mathematically well defined three-dimensional configurations whose
two-dimensional analogs have been derived
(4,
17). In direct template
correlative matching, electron micrographs are matched to these analogs. Cubic
cell membrane geometries and in vitro cubic phases of purified lipid
mixtures do differ in their lattice parameters; however, such deviations are
thought to relate to differences in water activity and lipid to protein ratios
(10,
14,
18). Direct template
correlative matching has revealed thousands of examples of cellular cubic
membranes in a broad survey of electron micrographs ranging from protozoa to
human cells (14,
17) and, more recently, in the
mitochondria of amoeba (19)
and in subcellular membrane compartments associated with severe acute
respiratory syndrome virus
(20). Analysis of cellular
cubic membranes has also been furthered by the development of EM tomography
that confirmed the presence of cubic bilayers in the mitochondrial membranes
of amoeba (21,
22).Although it is now clear that cubic membranes can exist in living cells,
the generation of such architecture would appear tightly regulated, as
evidenced by the dominance of lamellar bilayers in biology. In this light, we
examined the capability and implications of generating cubic membranes in the
endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of mammalian tissue culture cells. The ER is a
spatially interconnected complex consisting of two domains, the nuclear
envelope and the peripheral ER
(23–26).
The nuclear envelope surrounds the nucleus and is composed of two continuous
sheets of membranes, an inner and outer nuclear membrane connected to each
other at nuclear pores. The peripheral ER constitutes a network of branching
trijunctional tubules that are continuous with membrane sheet regions that
occur in closer proximity to the nucleus. Recently it has been suggested that
the classical morphological definition of rough ER (ribosome-studded) and
smooth ER (ribosome-free) may correspond to sheet-like and tubular ER domains,
respectively (27). The ER has
a strong potential for cubic architectures, as demonstrated by the fact that
the majority of cubic cell membranes in the EM record come from ER-derived
structures (14,
17). Furthermore, ER cubic
symmetries are an inducible class of organized smooth ER (OSER), a definition
collectively referring to ordered smooth ER membranes (=stacked cisternae on
the outer nuclear membrane, also called Karmelle
(28–30),
packed sinusoidal ER (31),
concentric membrane whorls
(30,
32–34),
and arrays of crystalloid ER
(35–37)).
Specifically, weak homotypic interactions between membrane proteins produce
both a whorled and a sinusoidal OSER phenotype
(38), the latter exhibiting a
cubic symmetry (16,
39).We were able to produce OSER with cubic membrane morphology via induction
of homo-dimerization of artificial membrane proteins. Interestingly, the
resultant cubic membrane architecture was removed from the ER system by
incorporation into large autophagic vacuoles. To assess whether these cubic
symmetries were favored in the absence of cellular energy, we depleted ATP. To
our surprise, the cells responded by forming large domains of tubulated
membrane, suggesting that a cubic symmetry was not the preferred conformation
of the system. Our results suggest that whereas the endoplasmic reticulum is
capable of adopting cubic symmetries, both the inherent properties of the ER
system and active cellular mechanisms, such as autophagy, can tightly control
their appearance. |
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