Feb 12, 2017 - Jinwoo Lee1,2, David A. Nyenhuis1,3, Elizabeth A. Nelson1,4,. David S. Cafiso1,3, Judith M. White1,4, Lukas K. Tamm1,2. .... Aaron Jubb.
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Sunday, February 12, 2017
by depolarization of a neuron, which in turn activates voltage-gated Ca2þ channels. The resulting Ca2þ influx then triggers the fusion of the synaptic vesicles with the plasma membrane. Synaptic vesicle fusion is mediated by a core fusion machinery SNARE complex, a small regulatory factor complexin (Cpx), and Ca2þ sensor synaptotagmin (Syt). However, it was unknown how they cooperate to trigger synaptic vesicle fusion. Combining X-ray crystallography and electrophysiological recording techniques, we determined two atomic resolution crystal structures of the synaptic vesicle fusion machinery at different states, revealing a large, specific, Ca2þ-independent interface which is essential for synchronous neurotransmitter release in mouse neuronal synapses. We propose a working model and further reveal the molecular mechanism of synchronous neurotransmitter release. 400-Pos Board B165 a-Synuclein: A Functional Role as a Regulator of SNARE-Mediated Fusion Siobhan Toal, Elizabeth Rhoades. Chemistry, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Fusion of vesicular and plasma membranes is mediated by SNARE proteins. In a vesicular fusion event, the t- and v-SNAREs assemble into a four-helix bundle pulling the two membranes together to cause fusion. A decrease in neurotransmitter release upon overexpression of the neuronal protein a-Synuclein (aS) has been observed in animal models, suggesting that aS may act as a regulator of neurotransmission, altering SNARE driven fusion of synaptic vesicles. Recent work in our lab has shown that aS is able to inhibit SNARE-mediated fusion in vitro, although the mechanism appears to be through binding to the lipid bilayer, not through direct interactions with SNARE proteins. Here, we investigate the possibility that aS may also modulate fusion through interactions with SNARE regulatory proteins, synaptotagmin and complexin, using an in vitro fusion assay. We find that in the presence of synaptotagmin and complexin, aS differentially alters SNARE-mediated vesicle fusion in a concentration dependent manner. At low aS concentrations, fusion is significantly enhanced in a concentration-dependent manner (i.e. increasing fusion with increasing aS). However, once a threshold concentration is exceeded, fusion is again inhibited, again in a concentration dependent manner (i.e. decreasing fusion with increasing aS). Direct evidence of protein-protein interactions was monitored using fluorescence correlation spectroscopy to measure the diffusion times of the protein components. SNARE complex formation can be observed as a function of time through an increase in the diffusion time of labeled t-SNARE protein. While aS does not appear to impact the rate of complex formation alone, substantial increases in the diffusion time of the SNARE complex in the presence of aS and complexin were observed, suggesting an interaction between the two. Taken together, our results suggest that aS may have a dual role in SNARE-mediated membrane fusion, as a chaperone of SNARE regulatory components as well as, at high enough concentrations, a fusion inhibitor. 401-Pos Board B166 Mitochondrial Fusion Proteins: A Tale of Two Membranes Andrew D. Kehr, Marisa A. Rubio, Jenny Hinshaw. NIDDK, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, USA. Dynamins are a class of GTPase enzymes responsible for the fusion, fission, and vesiculation of cellular lipid membranes throughout the cell. The dynamin-like proteins Optic Atrophy 1 (Opa1) and Mitofusin (Mfn) 1 and 2 are responsible for the fusion of the mitochondrial inner and outer membranes, respectively. Mutations in any of these proteins can lead to neuropathies including blindness and Charcot-MarieTooth, a disease characterized by progressive loss of distal muscle tissue. Currently, little is known structurally or biochemically about any of these proteins. We have developed a protocol for expressing and purifying biologically relevant and biochemically active shortened isoforms (OpaGG and Mfn1GG) in sufficient quantity to begin crystallographic studies. Both have comparable GTPase activity compared to fulllength, unstimulated Dynamin 1 when assayed at room temperature and interestingly OpaGG exists as a tetramer when assayed by size exclusion chromatography. In addition, the long, membrane-bound isoforms of Opa1 and Mfn1 have been expressed and purified in large quantities. To date, we have shown full length Mfn1 can be incorporated into proteoliposomes and in the presence of GTP forms dense tethers as seen by cryo-EM. This tethering is reversible as shown by confocal microscopy. Currently we are developing tethering assays for Opa1 and fusion assays for both Opa1 and Mfn1.
402-Pos Board B167 Structure of the Ebola Virus Envelope Protein MPER/TM Domain and its Interaction with the Fusion Loop Explains their Fusion Activity Jinwoo Lee1,2, David A. Nyenhuis1,3, Elizabeth A. Nelson1,4, David S. Cafiso1,3, Judith M. White1,4, Lukas K. Tamm1,2. 1 Center for Membrane and Cell Physiology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA, 2Departments of Molecular Physiology and Biological Physics, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA, 3 Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA, 4 Department of Cell Biology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA. Ebolavirus (EBOV), an enveloped filamentous RNA virus causing severe hemorrhagic fever, enters cells by macropinocytosis and releases its genetic material into the cytoplasm after membrane fusion in a late endosomal compartment. Membrane fusion is governed by the EBOV surface envelope glycoprotein (GP), which consists of subunits GP1 and GP2. GP1 binds to cellular receptors including Niemann-Pick C1 (NPC1) protein and GP2 is responsible for membrane fusion at low pH. GP1 undergoes multiple steps of proteolytic cleavage and binds to NPC1 at endosomal pH. GP2 is rearranged in a fashion that exposes the hydrophobic fusion loop (FL) of GP2, which is then inserted into the cellular target membrane, ultimately forming a sixhelix bundle structure and resulting in the formation of the fusion pore. Although major portions of the GP2 structure that have been solved in preand post-fusion states and the current model places the transmembrane (TM) and FL domains of GP2 in close proximity to each other at critical steps of membrane fusion, their structures in membrane environments and especially interactions between TM and FL have not yet been characterized. Here we present the structure of the membrane proximal external region (MPER) connected to the TM domain, i.e. the missing parts of the EBOV GP2 structure. The structure, solved by solution NMR and EPR spectroscopy in membranemimetic environments, consists of a helix-turn-helix architecture that is independent of pH. Moreover, the MPER region, not TM region, is shown to interact in the membrane interface with the previously determined structure of the EBOV FL through several critical aromatic residues. Mutation of aromatic and neighboring residues in both binding partners decreases fusion and viral entry highlighting the functional importance of the MPER/TM - FL interaction in EBOV entry and fusion. 403-Pos Board B168 Leakage Induced by the Influenza Virus Haemagglutinin Depends on Target Membrane Spontaneous Curvature Sourav Haldar, Elena Mekhedov, Jane Farrington, Petr Chlanda, Paul S. Blank, Joshua Zimmerberg. Section on Integrative Biophysics, NICHD/NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA. A recent cryo-electron microscopy investigation(Chlanda et al. (2016) Nat. Microbiol. 1:16050) of hemifusion structures mediated by the influenza virus haemagglutinin posited that there exist two pathways for hemi-fusion: hemifusion-stalk and rupture-insertion. Depending on target membrane material properties, such as spontaneous curvature, one pathway will be favored over the other. A prediction of this hypothesis is that leakage of soluble content will be greater through the rupture-insertion pathway. To test this prediction, we have developed a giant unilamellar vesicle (GUV)-based dye influx assay that provides a direct measure of leakage. Our results show that leakage (influx of soluble dye in GUV) induced by influenza virus changes from ~ 80 % to ~ 40 % as the spontaneous curvature is changed from 0.02 nm1 to 0.30 nm1, supporting the hypothesis that leakage is modulated by membrane spontaneous curvature. Surprisingly, with some lipid compositions, leakage was sub-maximal, i.e. there was a variable degree of GUV filling. This result raised the possibility of a transient target membrane damage induced by the influenza virus. It was also possible that the complete fusion of a leaky virus to a GUV was responsible for the filling of the GUV. To control for this possibility, we compared leakage induced by commercially prepared virus (containing significant damaged viral membrane, as evidenced by entry of a cell impermeant nucleotidebinding dye) with lab-grown virus (with apparently minimal damaged viral membranes). 404-Pos Board B169 Viral Fusion Efficacy of Influenza Virus H3N2 Reassortment Combination to the Suppoered Lipid Layer Hunglun Hsu1, Jean Millet2, Deirdre Costello1, Gary Whittaker2, Susan Daniel1. 1 Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA, 2Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA.
Sunday, February 12, 2017 Virus pseudotyping is a useful and safe technique for studying entry of emerging strains of influenza virus. However, few studies have compared different reassortant combinations in pseudoparticle systems, or compared entry kinetics of native viruses and their pseudotyped analogs. Here, vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-based pseudovirions displaying distinct influenza virus envelope proteins were tested for fusion activity. We produced VSV pseudotypes containing the prototypical X-31 (H3) HA, either alone or with strain-matched or mismatched N2 NAs. We performed singleparticle fusion assays using total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy to compare hemifusion kinetics among these pairings. Results illustrate that matching pseudoparticles behaved very similarly to native virus. Pseudoparticles harboring mismatched HA-NA pairings fuse at significantly slower rates than native virus, and NA-lacking pseudoparticles exhibiting the slowest fusion rates. Relative viral membrane HA density of matching pseudoparticles was higher than in mismatching or NA-lacking pseudoparticles. An equivalent trend of HA expression level on cell membranes of HA/NA co-transfected cells was observed and intracellular trafficking of HA was affected by NA co-expression. Overall, we show that specific influenza HA-NA combinations can profoundly affect the critical role played by HA during entry, which may factor into viral fitness and the emergence of new pandemic influenza viruses. 405-Pos Board B170 SERINC5 Inhibits HIV Fusion through Inactivation of Env Glycoproteins and Interference with Productive Refolding of Env Chetan Sood1, Mariana Marin1, Ajit Chande2, Alexa L. Mattheyses3, Khalid Salaita4, Massimo Pizzato5, Gregory Melikian1. 1 Pediatrics, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA, 2University of Trento, Trento, Italy, 3Cell biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA, 4 Chemistry, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA, 5University, Trento, Italy. The multispan membrane proteins, SERINC3 and SERINC5, have been recently shown to incorporate into HIV-1 particles and compromise their ability to fuse with target cells – an effect that is antagonized by the viral accessary protein Nef. Env glycoproteins from different HIV-1 strains exhibit variable levels of sensitivity to SERINC-mediated restriction. The mechanism by which SERINCs interfere with HIV-1 fusion remains unclear. Here, we show by real-time single particle imaging that incorporation of SERINC5 into virions in the absence of Nef inhibits the formation of small fusion pores between viruses and cells. This effect was not related to the SERINC5’s ability to oligomerize in the membrane or target the virus to degradation in lysosomes. Strikingly, we found that SERINC5 promotes spontaneous inactivation of sensitive, but not resistant Env glycoproteins, and enhances the exposure of the conserved gp41 domains by delaying the HIV-1 fusion reaction. Super-resolution imaging revealed that SERINC5 also interferes with the formation of Env clusters on mature virions, a step that is thought to be required for efficient HIV-1 fusion. These results show that SERINC5 restricts HIV-1 fusion at a step prior to small pore formation by selectively inactivating sensitive Env glycoproteins and interfering with the function of the remaining active Env, likely by preventing the formation of large Env clusters and slowing down Env refolding. This work was partially supported by the NIH R01 grant GM054787 to G.B.M. 406-Pos Board B171 SERINC Inhibits HIV-1 Env Induced Membrane Fusion and Slows Fusion Pore Enlargement Ruben M. Markosyan1, Shan-Lu Liu2, Fred S. Cohen1. 1 Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA, 2Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, University of Missouri School of Medicine, Columbia, MO, USA. The SERINC family of proteins are integral membrane proteins that regulate the incorporation of serine into phospholipids, to create PS, and into sphingolipids. It has recently been shown that two members of the family, SERINC3 and SERINC5, inhibit HIV infectivity. Using a cell-cell fusion system to determine the extent to which inhibition of infectivity is due to reduced fusion, we found that the presence of SERINC3 or SERINC5 in either effector or target cells slows the kinetics and reduces the extent of fusion induced by HIV-1 Env. These two incorporators of serine greatly retard fusion pore enlargement, as determined by the rate of aqueous dye transfer once a pore forms. Nef is an auxiliary protein of HIV that is well-known to enhance HIV infectivity. The presence of SERINC5 and Nef in effector cells leads to the same extent of fusion induced by expression of Env alone, showing that Nef eliminates the reduction of fusion caused by SERINC. (R01 GM 101 539).
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407-Pos Board B172 Probing Induced Structural Changes in Biomimetic Bacterial Cell Membrane Interactions with Divalent Cations Allison Whited, Alexander Johs, John Katsaras, Robert Standaert, Aaron Jubb. Oak Ridge National Lab, Knxoville, TN, USA. Biological membranes, formed primarily by the self-assembly of complex mixtures of phospholipids, provide a structured scaffold for compartmentalization and structural processes in living cells. The specific physical properties of phospholipid species present in a given membrane play a key role in mediating these processes. Phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), a zwitterionic lipid present in bacterial, yeast, and mammalian cell membranes, is exceptional. In addition to undergoing the standard lipid polymorphic transition between the gel and liquid-crystalline phase, it can also assume an unusual polymorphic state, the inverse hexagonal phase (HII). Divalent cations are among the factors that drive the formation of the HII phase, wherein the lipid molecules form stacked tubular structures by burying the hydrophilic head groups and exposing the hydrophobic tails to the bulk solvent. Most biological membranes contain a lipid species capable of forming the HII state suggesting that such lipid polymorphic structural states play an important role in structural biological processes such as membrane fusion. In this study, the interactions between Mg2þ and biomimetic bacterial cell membranes composed of PE and phosphatidylglycerol (PG) were probed using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS), and fluorescence spectroscopy. The lipid phase transitions were examined at varying ratios of PE to PG and upon exposure to physiologically relevant concentrations of Mg2þ. An understanding of these basic interactions enhances our understanding of membrane dynamics and how membrane-mediated structural changes may occur in vivo. 408-Pos Board B173 Role of trans to cis Transition in Viral Fusion Pore Dilation Brett E. Alcott1, Zhenyong Wu2,3, Josie Bircher4, Erdem Karatekin2,3, Ben O’ Shaughnessy5. 1 Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA, 2Cellular and Molecular Physiology, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA, 3Nanobiology Institute, Yale University, West Haven, CT, USA, 4 Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA, 5Chemical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA. Fusion of viral and host membranes is a key step during infection by membrane-enclosed viruses. The fusion pore plays a critical role, and must dilate to release the viral genome. Previous studies of fusion mediated by influenza A hemagglutinin (HA) revealed ~2-5 nm pores that flickered before dilating to >10 nm. The mechanisms are unknown. Here we studied HA-mediated fusion pore dynamics using a novel single-pore assay, combined with computational simulations accessing extraordinarily long ms-s timescales. We measured pores between HA-expressing fibroblasts and bilayer nanodiscs. From pore currents we infer pore size with millisecond time resolution. Unlike previous in vitro studies, use of nanodiscs limited the membrane contact areas and maximum pore sizes, better mimicking the initial phases of virus-endosome fusion. With wild type (WT) HA, fusion pores flickered about a mean pore size ~1 nm. By contrast, fusion pores formed by GPI-anchored HA nucleated at half the WT rate and were significantly larger. We developed radically coarse-grained, explicit lipid molecular dynamics simulations of the fusion pore reconstituted with post-fusion, trans HA hairpins. With WT HA, fusion pores were small, similar to experiment. Over time hairpins gradually converted from trans to cis, but contrary to a common view, cis hairpins accumulated on the ‘‘viral’’ membrane, not the pore waist, due to the low mobility HA transmembrane domains. With GPI-HA the anchoring lipids were far more mobile and the trans-cis transition much accelerated. Once most hairpins had converted to cis, because apposing membranes were released the fusion pore dilated significantly. Our results suggest pore dilation requires the trans-cis transition. We hypothesize that this transition is accelerated in GPI-HA by the more mobile lipid anchor, explaining the larger observed pores. 409-Pos Board B174 The Influence of Membrane Composition on the Kinetics of Influenza Virus Fusion Measured using a Single Particle Approach Guus van der Borg1, Scarlett Braddock1, Jelle S. Blijleven1, Antoine M. van Ooien2, Wouter H. Roos1. 1 Molecular Biophysics, Zernike Institute, Groningen, Netherlands, 2School of Chemistry, Wollongong, Australia.
