Biophysical Mechanisms of Membrane-Thickness-Dependent MscL Gating: An All-Atom Molecular Dynamics Study

• Published in: Langmuir Vol. 35; no. 23; pp. 7432 - 7442
• Main Authors: Katsuta, Hiroki, Sawada, Yasuyuki, Sokabe, Masahiro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 11.06.2019
• Subjects: bacteria; lipid bilayers; molecular dynamics

The bacterial mechanosensitive channel, MscL, is activated by membrane tension, acting as a safety valve to prevent cell lysis against hypotonic challenge. It has been established that its activation threshold decreases with membrane thickness, while the underlying mechanism remains to be solved. We...