We studied the binding of fatty acids and acylated peptides to phospholipid vesicles by making electrophoretic mobility and equilibrium dialysis measurements. The binding energies of the anionic form of the fatty acids and the corresponding acylated glycines were identical; the energies increased by 0.8 kcal/mol per number of carbons in the acyl chain (Ncarbon = 10, 12, 14, 16), a value identical to that for the classical entropy-driven hydrophobic effect discussed by Tanford [The Hydrophobic Effect (1980) Wiley, New York]. The unitary Gibbs free binding energy, delta Gou, of myristoylated glycine, 8 kcal/mol, is independent of the nature of the electrically neutral lipids used to form the vesicles. Similar binding energies were obtained with other myristoylated peptides (e.g., Gly-Ala, Gly-Ala-Ala). The 8 kcal/mol, which corresponds to an effective dissociation constant of 10(-4) M for myristoylated peptides with lipids, provides barely enough energy to attach a myristoylated protein in the cytoplasm to the plasma membrane. Thus, other factors that reduce (e.g., hydrophobic interaction of myristate with the covalently attached protein) or enhance (e.g., electrostatic interactions of basic residues with acidic lipids; protein-protein interactions with intrinsic receptor proteins) the interaction of myristoylated proteins with membranes are likely to be important and may cause reversible translocation of these proteins to the membrane.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

We measured directly the binding of Lys3, Lys5, and Lys7 to vesicles containing acidic phospholipids. When the vesicles contain 33% acidic lipids and the aqueous solution contains 100 mM monovalent salt, the standard Gibbs free energy for the binding of these peptides is 3, 5, and 7 kcal/mol, respectively. The binding energies decrease as the mol% of acidic lipids in the membrane decreases and/or as the salt concentration increases. Several lines of evidence suggest that these hydrophilic peptides do not penetrate the polar headgroup region of the membrane and that the binding is mainly due to electrostatic interactions. To calculate the binding energies from classical electrostatics, we applied the nonlinear Poisson-Boltzmann equation to atomic models of the phospholipid bilayers and the basic peptides in aqueous solution. The electrostatic free energy of interaction, which arises from both a long-range coulombic attraction between the positively charged peptide and the negatively charged lipid bilayer, and a short-range Born or image charge repulsion, is a minimum when approximately 2.5 A (i.e., one layer of water) exists between the van der Waals surfaces of the peptide and the lipid bilayer. The calculated molar association constants, K, agree well with the measured values: K is typically about 10-fold smaller than the experimental value (i.e., a difference of about 1.5 kcal/mol in the free energy of binding). The predicted dependence of K (or the binding free energies) on the ionic strength of the solution, the mol% of acidic lipids in the membrane, and the number of basic residues in the peptide agree very well with the experimental measurements. These calculations are relevant to the membrane binding of a number of important proteins that contain clusters of basic residues.

We used the nonlinear Poisson-Boltzmann equation to calculate electrostatic potentials in the aqueous phase adjacent to model phospholipid bilayers containing mixtures of zwitterionic lipids (phosphatidylcholine) and acidic lipids (phosphatidylserine or phosphatidylglycerol). The aqueous phase (relative permittivity, epsilon r = 80) contains 0.1 M monovalent salt. When the bilayers contain < 11% acidic lipid, the -25 mV equipotential surfaces are discrete domes centered over the negatively charged lipids and are approximately twice the value calculated using Debye-Hückel theory. When the bilayers contain > 25% acidic lipid, the -25 mV equipotential profiles are essentially flat and agree well with the values calculated using Gouy-Chapman theory. When the bilayers contain 100% acidic lipid, all of the equipotential surfaces are flat and agree with Gouy-Chapman predictions (including the -100 mV surface, which is located only 1 A from the outermost atoms). Even our model bilayers are not simple systems: the charge on each lipid is distributed over several atoms, these partial charges are non-coplanar, there is a 2 A ion-exclusion region (epsilon r = 80) adjacent to the polar headgroups, and the molecular surface is rough. We investigated the effect of these four factors using smooth (or bumpy) epsilon r = 2 slabs with embedded point charges: these factors had only minor effects on the potential in the aqueous phase.

Zero polymer concentration diffusion coefficients, DO, of heparin and chondroitin 6-sulfate were independent of ionic strength C,. Since static dimensions of such linear polyelectrolytes are sensitive functions of C,, the constant DO may represent a partial-draining effect. Similar measurements were made for poly(styrenesulfonate) fractions. For high molecular weights root-mean-square (RMS) radii of gyration (S2)1/2vsCBwere determined. l/Dofollowed (B)llzat high C, (>100mM),climbedlesssteeplyatintermediate C,, ~d reached a plateau below 30 mM. Although tempting to interpret these regimes as nondraining, partial drainmg, and free draining, respectively, 1/Do a iW6 for all C,. Thus, although some type of draining condition seems implicated, a simplistic free-draining condition in the plateau region is inconsistent with the mass scaling. The data show that dynamic light scattering may not be an appropriate particle sizing technique for many linear polyelectrolytes. The 'extraordinary" diffusional phase, present in some samples, could always be permanently removed by filtration through membranes of sufficiently small pore size. IntroductionThe hydrodynamic behavior of macromolecules depends on such factors as linear dimensions, excluded volume, and degree of draining. Numerous theoretical approaches have been taken for calculating such quantities as intrinsic viscosity, sedimentation coefficienta, and translational and rotational friction factors.'-* It is not the object of this report to make critical comparisons of the theories but rather to provide data which bear directly on one of the fundamental issues necessarily addressed in theories of the translational diffusion coefficient: the relationship

SYNOPSISThe "extraordinary" diffusional phase ( E P ) at low ionic strength, and the conditions for its removability by filtration were investigated for dilute solutions of the following linear polyelectrolytes: poly ( L-lysine ) , heparin, chondroitin-6-sulfate, hyaluronate, polystyrene sulfonate, and variably ionized polyacrylamide. The E P was not present for all the different types studied, and for heparin, for example, the phase was present only for samples from certain sources. In all cases the phase was removable by filtration through sufficiently small pore-size membranes. Once filtered, the EP remained absent for over one week. It is concluded that the extraordinary diffusional phase consists of fairly stable polyelectrolyte aggregates, and sometimes also includes other very small particulate impurities. These aggregates and other small particles are thought to be present, or at least nascent, in the dry polyelectrolyte material, so that their properties may depend critically on the manner in which such dry material is produced. Tests for "reversibility" of the EP by cycling between high and low C, by dialysis further confirm these conclusions. The evidence is thus against the E P representing any type of temporal aggregates or local ordering, at least for the linear polyelectrolytes studied in this work. Rather, due to the extremely feeble scattering of ordinary polyelectrolytes at low ionic strength, the weak scattering from residual aggregates and other particles, not removed by ordinary filtration and centrifugation procedures, give autocorrelable scattering signals with long decay times. The "loss" of the extraordinary phase as ionic strength increases appears to be due simply to the weak E P scattering signal getting buried in the sharply increasing scattering from the ordinary polyelectrolyte phase. Model calculations based on experimental data support this latter conclusion.