Berlin 2018 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 38: Membranes and Vesicles II (joint session BP/CPP)
BP 38.5: Talk
Friday, March 16, 2018, 10:45–11:00, H 2013
Design of a switchable DNA origami structure for shaping lipid membranes — •Alena Khmelinskaia1, Megan Engel2,3, Garima Mishra3, Jonathan Doye3, and Petra Schwille1 — 1Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Planegg, Germany — 2Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom — 3Department of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
Biological membranes are dynamic cellular barriers that suffer deformation and bending. In recent years, due to its exclusive nano-engineering properties, the DNA origami technology has been vastly used to build synthetic scaffolds that partially recapitulate curvature-inducing mechanisms. Nonetheless, the control over such shaping phenomena is yet scarce. Here, we design a DNA based nanostructure with an integrated conformational switch, with the goal to deform free-standing lipid membranes. Using site-directed single-strand displacement reactions as force elements, DNA nanostructures change their conformation into a bent state. Simulations of the DNA-based nanostructures using the oxDNA coarse-grained model confirm the experimentally observed bending. A complementary approach of nucleotide sequence variation and simulation is used to balance the implemented force elements and consequently optimize the conformational switch. We show that bent DNA-based structures are capable of inducing large scale deformations on free-standing lipid bilayers. Furthermore, our results may confirm theoretical predictions of membrane bending based on the free energy changes of the bound DNA structures.