Membrane Phospholipids Act as DNA/RNA Receptors during Formation of Specific DNA-Nuclear Membrane Contacts and Gene Expression: A Hypothesis Based on the Study of Interaction between Phospholipid Vesicles and DNA or Polynucleotides

Abstract

Interaction of DNA with biomembranes was discovered for all types of organisms: viruses, phages and bacteria, plant and animal cells (e.g., Moyer, 1979), participating, by our opinion, in signal transduction. In 70-s, along with lipid-protein interactions (e.g., Watts and De Pont, 1985) DNA-membrane interactions have also been studied. DNA-nuclear membrane contacts (DNA-MC) have been considered important for matrix synthesis of nucleic acids, DNA packing in bacteria and in eucaryotic chromosomes, translocation of nucleic acids through biomembranes during virus infection and transfection, as well as for DNA replication and transcription (e.g., Bush, 1974, Moeyer, 1979). These works covered mainly DNA-membrane proteins interactions, and small attention has been paid to that of DNA and biomembrane phospholipids. Only a limited number of works was dedicated to the part of nuclear lipids for stabilization or destabilization of DNA (e.g., Manzoli et al., 1972; Manzoli et al, 1974; Alesenko and Burlakova, 1976; Alesenko and Pantaz, 1983). Interaction of nucleic acids with lipids has been also studied by a number of techniques: spectrophotometry (Brosius and Reisner, 1986), IR-spectroscopy (Shabarchina et al., 1979), 31P- (Victorov et al., 1984) and 13C-NMR (Budker et al., 1986), microcalorimetry (Bichenkov et al., 1988a) and spin labeling (Krasilnikov et al., 1989), though without relation to the problem of DNA-MC. Contemporary data on interaction of polynucleotides and nucleic acids with lipids (Sukhorukov et al., 1980; Bonora et al., 1981; Grepachevsky et al., 1986) and phospholipid liposomes (Hoffman et al., 1978; Budker et al., 1978, 1980; Gruzdev et al., 1982; Kuvichkin, 1983; Kuvichkin and Sukhomudrenko, 1987; Kuvichkin et al., 1989; Kuvichkin, 1990; Zhdanov and Kuvichkin, 1991; Zhdanov, 1992; Zhdanov et al. 1993 a, b, c) reveal the existence of considerable interaction between them in the presence of bivalent metal ions, characterized by the possible coordination of phosphoryl groups of polynucleotides and phospholipids through metal ion bridges.