Abstract The presence of cytosolic and plastidic pathways of carbohydrate oxidation is a characteristic feature of plant cell metabolism. Ideally, steady-state metabolic flux analysis, an emerging tool for creating flux maps of heterotrophic plant metabolism, would capture this feature of the metabolic phenotype, but the extent to which this can be achieved is uncertain. To address this question, fluxes through the pathways of central metabolism in a heterotrophic Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) cell suspension culture were deduced from the redistribution of label in steady-state 13C-labeling experiments using [1-13C]-, [2-13C]-, and [U-13C6]glucose. Focusing on the pentose phosphate pathway (PPP), multiple data sets were fitted simultaneously to models in which the subcellular compartmentation of the PPP was altered. The observed redistribution of the label could be explained by any one of three models of the subcellular compartmentation of the oxidative PPP, but other biochemical evidence favored the model in which the oxidative steps of the PPP were duplicated in the cytosol and plastids, with flux through these reactions occurring largely in the cytosol. The analysis emphasizes the inherent difficulty of analyzing the PPP without predefining the extent of its compartmentation and the importance of obtaining high-quality data that report directly on specific subcellular processes. The Arabidopsis flux map also shows that the potential ATP yield of respiration in heterotrophic plant cells can greatly exceed the direct metabolic requirements for biosynthesis, highlighting the need for caution when predicting flux through metabolic networks using assumptions based on the energetics of resource utilization.
The use of styrene maleic acid lipid particles (SMALPs) for the purification of membrane proteins (MPs) is a rapidly developing technology. The amphiphilic copolymer of styrene and maleic acid (SMA) disrupts biological membranes and can extract membrane proteins in nanodiscs of approximately 10 nm diameter. These discs contain SMA, protein and membrane lipids. There is evidence that MPs in SMALPs retain their native structures and functions, in some cases with enhanced thermal stability. In addition, the method is compatible with biological buffers and a wide variety of biophysical and structural analysis techniques. The use of SMALPs to solubilize and stabilize MPs offers a new approach in our attempts to understand, and influence, the structure and function of MPs and biological membranes. In this review, we critically assess progress with this method, address some of the associated technical challenges, and discuss opportunities for exploiting SMA and SMALPs to expand our understanding of MP biology.
MmpL3 is an essential mycobacterial transporter. Extensive biophysical analysis reveals for the first time that MmpL3 exists as a dimer in different membrane mimetics.
Abstract Biological characterisation of membrane proteins lags behind that of soluble proteins. This reflects issues with the traditional use of detergents for extraction, as the surrounding lipids are generally lost, with adverse structural and functional consequences. In contrast, styrene maleic acid (SMA) copolymers offer a detergent-free method for biological membrane solubilisation to produce SMA-lipid particles (SMALPs) containing membrane proteins together with their surrounding lipid environment. We report the development of a reverse-phase LC-MS/MS method for bacterial phospholipids and the first comparison of the profiles of SMALP co-extracted phospholipids from three exemplar bacterial membrane proteins with different topographies: FtsA (associated membrane protein), ZipA (single transmembrane helix), and PgpB (integral membrane protein). The data showed that while SMA treatment per se did not preferentially extract specific phospholipids from the membrane, SMALP-extracted ZipA showed an enrichment in phosphatidylethanolamines and depletion in cardiolipins compared to the bulk membrane lipid. Comparison of the phospholipid profiles of the 3 SMALP-extracted proteins revealed distinct lipid compositions for each protein: ZipA and PgpB were similar, but in FtsA samples longer chain phosphatidylglycerols and phosphatidylethanolamines were more abundant. This method offers novel information on the phospholipid interactions of these membrane proteins.
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