Diverse cellular signaling events, including B cell receptor (BCR) activation, are hypothesized to be facilitated by domains enriched in specific plasma membrane lipids and proteins that resemble liquid-ordered phase-separated domains in model membranes. This concept remains controversial and lacks direct experimental support in intact cells. Here, we visualize ordered and disordered domains in mouse B lymphoma cell membranes using super-resolution fluorescence localization microscopy, demonstrate that clustered BCR resides within ordered phase-like domains capable of sorting key regulators of BCR activation, and present a minimal, predictive model where clustering receptors leads to their collective activation by stabilizing an extended ordered domain. These results provide evidence for the role of membrane domains in BCR signaling and a plausible mechanism of BCR activation via receptor clustering that could be generalized to other signaling pathways. Overall, these studies demonstrate that lipid mediated forces can bias biochemical networks in ways that broadly impact signal transduction.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.19891.001

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The extracellular senile plaques prevalent in brain tissue in Alzheimer's disease (AD) are composed of amyloid fibrils formed by the Aβ peptide. These fibrils have been traditionally believed to feature in neurotoxicity; however, numerous recent studies provide evidence that cytotoxicity in AD may be associated with low molecular weight oligomers of Aβ that associate with neuronal membranes and may lead to membrane permeabilization and disruption of the ion balance in the cell. The underlying mechanism leading to disruption of the membrane is the subject of many recent studies. Here we report the application of single molecule optical detection, using fluorescently labeled human Aβ40, combined with membrane conductivity measurements, to monitor the interaction of single oligomeric peptide structures with model planar black lipid membranes (BLM). In a qualitative study, we show that the binding of Aβ to the membrane can be described by three distinctly different behaviors, depending on the Aβ monomer concentration. For concentrations much below 10 nM, there is uniform binding of monomers over the surface of the membrane with no evidence of oligomer formation or membrane permeabilization. Between 10 nM and a few 100 nM, the uniform monomer binding is accompanied by the presence of peptide species ranging from dimers to small oligomers. The dimers are not found to permeabilize the membrane but the larger oligomers lead to permeabilization with individual oligomers producing ion conductances of less than 10 pS/pore. At higher concentration, perhaps beyond physiologically relevant concentrations, larger extended and dynamic structures are found with large conductance (100's of pS) suggesting major disruption of the membrane. KeywordsAβ; amyloid; single molecule; pore; electrophysiology; permeability One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the formation of insoluble neurofibrillary tangles and senile plaques in brain tissue. The major component of these proteinaceous plaques is the 39-43 amino acid Aβ peptide, derived by proteolytic cleavage of the membrane spanning amyloid precursor protein (APP). The mechanism that underlies the pathogenicity of Aβ towards neuronal tissue is the subject of intense research.In vitro studies of Aβ reveal that in aqueous solution the peptide progressively associates from its monomeric form via low molecular weight species to extended β-sheet fibrils, a process NIH Public Access Author ManuscriptBiochemistry. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 April 13. Published in final edited form as:Biochemistry. 2010 April 13; 49(14): 3031-3039. doi:10.1021/bi901444w. NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript that is highly dependent upon experimental conditions (1,2). It was originally assumed that Aβ becomes cytotoxic when it forms these large insoluble fibrillar aggregates (3,4), historically referred to as the amyloid hypothesis. For the purposes of this paper we use the term cytotoxic, to mean that Aβ causes deviations from the cell's ...

Understanding how amyloid-β peptide interacts with living cells on a molecular level is critical to development of targeted treatments for Alzheimer's disease. Evidence that oligomeric Aβ interacts with neuronal cell membranes has been provided, but the mechanism by which membrane binding occurs and the exact stoichiometry of the neurotoxic aggregates remain elusive. Physiologically relevant experimentation is hindered by the high Aβ concentrations required for most biochemical analyses, the metastable nature of Aβ aggregates, and the complex variety of Aβ species present under physiological conditions. Here we use single molecule microscopy to overcome these challenges, presenting direct optical evidence that small Aβ(1-40) oligomers bind to living neuroblastoma cells at physiological Aβ concentrations. Single particle fluorescence intensity measurements indicate that cell-bound Aβ species range in size from monomers to hexamers and greater, with the majority of bound oligomers falling in the dimer-to-tetramer range. Furthermore, while low-molecular weight oligomeric species do form in solution, the membrane-bound oligomer size distribution is shifted towards larger aggregates, indicating either that bound Aβ oligomers can rapidly increase in size or that these oligomers cluster at specific sites on the membrane. Calcium indicator studies demonstrate that small oligomer binding at physiological concentrations induces only mild, sporadic calcium leakage. These findings support the hypothesis that small oligomers are the primary Aβ species that interact with neurons at physiological concentrations.