Abstract
While the importance of membrane fusion is long established, the mechanism of membrane fusion is not yet fully understood. Proteins mediate biomembrane fusion, but membrane lipid composition also has a significant role. In order to understand the role of lipid composition in membrane fusion we have studied fusion between fusogenic (PC/PE/SM/CH) and non-fusogenic (DOPC) model membranes. We followed recorded the time courses of lipid mixing, content mixing and content leakage using fluorescence-based assays and then fitted these data to either a two-intermediate or one-intermediate kinetic model. We also examined the effect of negatively charged phosphatidylserine (PS) added to the fusogenic vesicles involved in asymmetric fusion. Our results showed that symmetric fusion between fusogenic membranes is faster and more complete than asymmetric fusion. However, the presence of PS in the fusogenic membrane led to asymmetric fusion being faster than symmetric fusion between PS-containing fusogenic membranes.
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