Using linewidth and spinning sideband intensities of lipid hydrocarbon chain resonances in proton magic angle spinning NMR spectra, we detected the temperature-dependent phase state of naturally occurring lipids of intact influenza virus without exogenous probes. Increasingly, below 41 1C ordered and disordered lipid domains coexisted for the viral envelope and extracts thereof. At 22 1C much lipid was in a gel phase, the fraction of which reversibly increased with cholesterol depletion. Diffusion measurements and fluorescence microscopy independently confirmed the existence of gel-phase domains. Thus the existence of ordered regions of lipids in biological membranes is now demonstrated. Above the physiological temperatures of influenza infection, the physical properties of viral envelope lipids, regardless of protein content, were indistinguishable from those of the disordered fraction. Viral fusion appears to be uncorrelated to ordered lipid content. Lipid ordering may contribute to viral stability at lower temperatures, which has recently been found to be critical for airborne transmission.Membranes of most enveloped viruses form by budding out from the plasma membranes of their host cells a highly select subset of plasma membrane components. In general, the selected membrane proteins are coded by the viral genome, whereas lipids are recruited from host membranes; however, the lipid composition of the viral envelope differs from that of the host membrane 1,2 and from other budding viruses 3 . The envelope of influenza contains higher amounts of both cholesterol 1 and glycosphingolipids 4 -lipids known to partition into the liquid ordered (l o ) phase. The l o phase is characterized by extended hydrocarbon chains having a reduced gauche-trans isomerization compared with those of the liquid disordered (l d ) phase, but having a similar rotational and translational mobility 5 . Liquid ordered phases are thought to be at the core of lipid rafts 6 , which are defined as transient membrane microdomains that are enriched in sphingolipids and cholesterol (1) 7 -a hypothesis that has generated much debate 8,9 .The influenza virus has played a pivotal role in the development of the raft hypothesis, starting with early studies that inferred ordered domains using spin probes 10-12 and fluorescence 13,14 and that suggested that an ordered lipid domain is selected in toto as the envelope during budding from the plasma membrane 15 . These lipids are either selected at the time of budding or pre-selected as the 'pre-envelope' suggested by clusters of the viral envelope protein hemagglutinin seen in immunoelectron microscopy 16 .Although detection of virus-sized domains of lipids (B100-nm diameter) is below the limit of resolution of fluorescent microscopy, large micrometer-sized membrane domains are reliably detected [17][18][19] . Recently, proton magic angle spinning NMR ( 1 H MAS NMR) has been used to determine the phase diagram of the same lipid compositions used to study large membrane domains in lipid bilayers and othe...

SNAREs such as VAMP, SNAP-25 and syntaxin are essential for intracellular trafficking, but what are their exact molecular roles and how are their interactions with other proteins manifest? Capitalizing on the differential sensitivity of SNAREs to exogenous proteases, we quantified the selective removal of identified SNAREs from native secretory vesicles without loss of fusion competence. Using previously established fusion assays and a high sensitivity immunoblotting protocol, we analyzed the relationship between these SNARE proteins and Ca2+-triggered membrane fusion. Neither the extent of fusion nor the number of intermembrane fusion complexes per vesicle were correlated with the measured density of identified egg cortical vesicle (CV) SNAREs. Without syntaxin, CVs remained fusion competent. Surprisingly, for one (but not another) protease the Ca2+dependence of fusion was correlated with CV SNARE density, suggesting a native protein complex that associates with SNAREs, the architecture of which ensures high Ca2+ sensitivity. As SNAREs may function during CV docking in vivo, and as further proteolysis after SNARE removal eventually ablates fusion, we hypothesize that the triggered steps of regulated fusion(Ca2+ sensitivity and the catalysis and execution of fusion)require additional proteins that function downstream of SNAREs.

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