Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting| Padova 2019

Quantitative Aspects of Membrane Fusion and Fission

Poster Abstracts

31-POS Board 31 LIGAND-PROTECTED AU NANOPARTICLES DRIVE LIPOSOME-LIPOSOME INTERACTIONS Enrico Lavagna 1 ; Sebastian Salassi 1 ; Giulia Rossi 1 ; 1 University of Genoa, Physics department, Genoa, Genova, Italy Membrane fusion is a ubiquitous and fundamental process in biological systems. The artificial synthesis of fusogenic agents can, on the one hand, shed light on the basic physical mechanisms underlying spontaneous fusion[1] and, on the other hand, it can lead to new applications, such as the directed delivery of encapsulated reagents to cells or liposomes. All fusion reactions embody an elementary process that includes membrane contact, membrane merging, and opening of a fusion pore between the water compartments of the vesicles. Here we explore the potential fusogenic activity of a class of Au nanoparticles which have been previously shown to interact favorably with neutral lipid membranes[2,3]. We perform molecular dynamics simulations with coarse-grained resolution and show that anionic, ligand-protected Au nanoparticles (NPs) can drive liposome-liposome interactions and cause liposome clustering, as recently shown at experimental level [4]. Moreover, the NPs accumulate at liposome-liposome interfaces and can cause the formation of inter-liposome bilayer structures. These results suggest that by designing specific ligands with fusogenic activity to be covalently linked to the NP surface may be a promising route towards the development of synthetic fusogenic nanoparticles.(1) D’Agostino, M.; Nature, 2017(2) Simonelli, F; J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 2015(3) Salassi, S.; J. Phys. Chem. C, 2017(4) Atukorale, P. U.; Bioconjug. Chem., 2018

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