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Title: Interactions of Truncated Menaquinones in Lipid Monolayers and Bilayers
Menaquinones (MK) are hydrophobic molecules that consist of a naphthoquinone headgroup and a repeating isoprenyl side chain and are cofactors used in bacterial electron transport systems to generate cellular energy. We have previously demonstrated that the folded conformation of truncated MK homologues, MK-1 and MK-2, in both solution and reverse micelle microemulsions depended on environment. There is little information on how MKs associate with phospholipids in a model membrane system and how MKs affect phospholipid organization. In this manuscript, we used a combination of Langmuir monolayer studies and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to probe these questions on truncated MK homologues, MK-1 through MK-4 within a model membrane. We observed that truncated MKs reside farther away from the interfacial water than ubiquinones are are located closer to the phospholipid tails. We also observed that phospholipid packing does not change at physiological pressure in the presence of truncated MKs, though a difference in phospholipid packing has been observed in the presence of ubiquinones. We found through MD simulations that for truncated MKs, the folded conformation varied, but MKs location and association with the bilayer remained unchanged at physiological conditions regardless of side chain length. Combined, this manuscript provides fundamental information, both experimental and computational, on the location, association, and conformation of truncated MK homologues in model membrane environments relevant to bacterial energy production.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1709564
NSF-PAR ID:
10294095
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
International journal of molecular sciences
Volume:
22
Issue:
18
ISSN:
1661-6596
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1-21
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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    Version: 2.0

    Changes versus version 1.0 are the addition of the free energy of folding, adsorption, and pairing calculations (Sim_Figure-7) and shifting of the figure numbers to accommodate this addition.


    Conventions Used in These Files
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    Structure Files
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    Force Field Parameters
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    CHARMM format parameter files:
    - par_all36m_prot.prm (CHARMM36m FF for proteins)
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    Template NAMD Configuration Files
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    Minimization
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    - namd/min_*.0.namd

    Equilibration
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    Adaptive biasing force calculations
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    - namd/eabfZRest7_graph_chp1404.0.namd
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    Scripts
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    CONTENTS
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    Sim_Figure-4: Simulation of four peptide molecules with the sequence cyc(GTGSGTG-GPGG-GCGTGTG-SGPG) at the graphite–water interface at 370 K.

    Sim_Figure-5: Simulation of four peptide molecules with the sequence cyc(GTGSGTG-GPGG-GCGTGTG-SGPG) at the graphite–water interface at 295 K.

    Sim_Figure-5_replica: Temperature replica exchange molecular dynamics simulations for the peptide cyc(GTGSGTG-GPGG-GCGTGTG-SGPG) with 20 replicas for temperatures from 295 to 454 K.

    Sim_Figure-6: Simulation of the peptide molecule cyc(GTGSGTG-GPGG-GCGTGTG-SGPG) in free solution (no graphite).

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