Lipid Regulation of Ion Channels and Transporters
A special issue of Membranes (ISSN 2077-0375). This special issue belongs to the section "Biological Membrane Functions".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 February 2022) | Viewed by 11652
Special Issue Editors
Interests: ion channel kinetics and structure; membrane transport (ion transport); molecular and cellular biology; molecular basis of disease; pain management; protein function and structure; signal transduction, computational modeling and instrumentation
Interests: molecular physiology and biophysics; lipid-dependent gating of Kv channels; ion channels in regulated secretion; RNA-binding proteins; development of new technologies for membrane biology and cryoEM imaging
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Membrane proteins are interfaced with a highly complex and heterogeneous lipid environment. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of phospholipid species in cells. They differ in the head group (charge, polarity, shape, size) and in the length and saturation of fatty acid tails that form the hydrophobic core of lipid bilayers. There are also abundant non-phospholipids and fatty acids in cell membranes, among which cholesterol alone accounts for about 20% of total lipids in animal cell plasma membranes. Moreover, these complex membrane compositions further generate high-order dynamic organizations of lipids (e.g., lipid rafts, protein islands, and other lateral nanodomains of specific lipid composition) and create intricate lipid properties such as membrane curvature and fluctuations, interleaflet coupling, bilayer asymmetry, and hydrophobic mismatch. Many, if not all, of these lipid properties have been implicated in protein activity. In particular, there has been growing appreciation in the last decades that lipids can specifically bind to membrane proteins much like ligands to influence protein biological functions, in addition to altering the physical properties of the lipid bilayer (e.g., fluidity, tension, or hydrophobic defects). However, challenges remain in understanding the biophysical and molecular mechanisms behind the lipid modulation of membrane proteins which are still elusive in most cases. This Special Issue calls for papers examining all aspects of protein–lipid interactions, with a focus on ion channels and transporters.
Dr. Feng Qin
Prof. Dr. Qiu-Xing Jiang
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- protein–lipid interaction
- lipid binding
- lipid modulation
- molecular mechanisms
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