No abstract

Liprotides are complexes between lipids and partially denatured proteins in which the protein forms a stabilizing shell around a fatty acid micelle core. We have previously shown that liprotides stabilize small aliphatic molecules such as retinal and tocopherol by sequestering these molecules in the fatty acid core. This opens up the use of liprotides to formulate food additives. Here, we expand our investigations to the large and bulky molecule vitamin D3 (vitD), motivated by the population-wide occurrence of vitD deficiency. We prepared liprotides using different proteins and fatty acids and evaluated their ability to protect vitD upon exposure to heating or intense UV light. Additionally, we determined the stability of liprotides toward pH, Ca(2+), and BSA. The best results were obtained with liprotides made from α-lactalbumin and oleate. These liprotides were able to completely solubilize vitD, increase the stability toward UV light 9-fold, and increase the long-term stability at 37°C up to 1,000-fold. Native α-lactalbumin binds Ca(2+), making Ca(2+) potentially disruptive toward liprotides. However, liprotides prepared by incubation at 80°C were stable toward Ca(2+), in contrast to those made at 20°C. Nevertheless, the fatty acid binding protein BSA reduced the ability of both liprotides to protect vitD; the amount of vitD remianing after 20d at 20°C decreased from 79±3% in the absence of BSA to 49±4 and 23±3% in the presence of BSA for liprotides made at 80 and 20°C, respectively. Both classes of liprotides were able to release their vitD content, as demonstrated by the transfer of vitD encapsulated in liprotides to phospholipid vesicles. Importantly, liprotides were not stable at pH 6 and below, limiting the useful pH range of the liprotides to >pH 6. Our results indicate that vitD may be encapsulated and stabilized for enrichment of clear beverages at neutral pH to improve the intake and bioavailability of vitD.

HAMLET (human α-lactalbumin made lethal to tumour cells) is a complex of α-lactalbumin (aLA) and oleic acid (OA) which kills transformed cells, while leaving fully differentiated cells largely unaffected. Other protein-lipid complexes show similar anti-cancer potential. We call such complexes liprotides. The cellular impact of liprotides, while intensely investigated, remains unresolved. To address this, we report on the cell-killing mechanisms of liprotides prepared by incubating aLA with OA for 1 h at 20 or 80 °C (lip20 and lip80, respectively). The liprotides showed similar cytotoxicity against MCF7 cells, though lip80 acts more slowly, possibly due to intermolecular disulphide bonds formed during preparation. Liprotides are known to increase the fluidity of a membrane and transfer OA to vesicles, prompting us to focus on the effect of liprotides on the cell membrane. Extracellular Ca2+ influx is important for activation of the plasma membrane repair system, and we found that removal of Ca2+ from the medium enhanced the liprotides’ killing effect. Liprotide cytotoxicity was also increased by knockdown of Annexin A6 (ANXA6), a protein involved in plasma membrane repair. We conclude that MCF7 cells counteract liprotide-induced membrane permeabilization by activating their plasma membrane repair system, which is triggered by extracellular Ca2+ and involves ANXA6.

No abstract

Cholesterol (chol) is important in all mammalian cells as a modulator of membrane fluidity. However, its low solubility is a challenge for controlled delivery to membranes. Here we introduce a new tool to deliver chol to membranes, namely, liprotides, i.e., protein-lipid complexes composed of a fatty acid core decorated with partially denatured protein. We focus on liprotides prepared by incubating Ca-depleted α-lactalbumin with oleic acid (OA) for 1 h at 20 °C (lip20) or 80 °C (lip80). The binding and membrane delivery properties of liprotides is compared to the widely chol transporter methyl-β-cyclodextrin (mBCD). Both lip20 and lip80 increase the solubility of chol ~ 50% more than mBCD and deliver chol to membranes with comparable efficiency. Although OA is cytotoxic at high concentrations, its effects are counterbalanced by chol. Further, cytotoxicity is strongly reduced when OA is replaced by cis-palmitoleic acid or cis-vaccenic acid. This makes liprotides good tools to deliver chol to membranes and cells.

The retroviral polyprotein Gag is an essential component for the formation of virus in infected cells. HIV-1 Gag is expressed in the cytoplasm, migrates to the cellular periphery and eventually targets the surface of the plasma membrane (PM), where assembly of immature virus occurs. The N-terminal matrix (MA) domain of Gag is the structural motif that mediates assembly on the PM. Distinct molecular mechanisms complement each other in positioning the protein in an orientation productive for assembly on the correct target membrane: electrostatic interaction between a patch of basic residues on the protein and anionic membrane lipids, hydrophobic interaction between MA's myristoylated N-terminus and the membrane, and specific binding of the protein to phophatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate (PI(4,5)P2) selectively enriched in the PM. A comparative study of non-myristoylated (-myr) and myristoylated (þmyr) MA association with well-defined membrane models of progressively higher compositional complexity was carried out. The systematic characterization of MA binding reveals that the various membrane components are highly cooperative in their interaction with the protein. More specifically, surface plasmon resonance shows weak binding of -myrMA to membranes containing physiological amounts of phosphatidylserine lipids. A significant increase in membrane affinity is observed for þmyrMA, which demonstrates that PI(4,5)P2 is not required for myristoyl exposure and membrane insertion. We find that þmyrMA has a preference to associate with cholesterol-rich membrane regions, increasing both binding affinity and total surface coverage of protein. PI(4,5)P2, which associates to a specific binding site on MA, was identified as the strongest single contributor to membrane binding. Our results show that the most complex lipid composition, which approaches the complexity of the biological membrane, is most effective in attracting the MA protein. This might explain the selective recruitment of those lipids into the viral membrane shell.