Research on protein-membrane interactions has been undeveloped due to the lack of proper techniques to detect the position of proteins at membranes because membranes are usually only about 4-nm thick. We have recently...Research on protein-membrane interactions has been undeveloped due to the lack of proper techniques to detect the position of proteins at membranes because membranes are usually only about 4-nm thick. We have recently developed a new method named surface-induced fluorescence attenuation (SIFA) to track both vertical and lateral kinetics of a single labelling dye in supported lipid bilayers. It takes advantage of strong interaction between a light-emitting dye and a partially reflecting surface. By applying the technique to membrane proteins being fluorescently labelled at different residues, here we show that SIFA can measure not only the insertion depth of a dye inside a lipid bilayer, but also the position of a dye in solution near the surface. SIFA can therefore be used to study membrane proteins of various types.展开更多
基金Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.11574382)the Key Research Program of Frontier Sciences,Chinese Academy of Sciences(Grant No.QYZDJ-SSW-SYS014)
文摘Research on protein-membrane interactions has been undeveloped due to the lack of proper techniques to detect the position of proteins at membranes because membranes are usually only about 4-nm thick. We have recently developed a new method named surface-induced fluorescence attenuation (SIFA) to track both vertical and lateral kinetics of a single labelling dye in supported lipid bilayers. It takes advantage of strong interaction between a light-emitting dye and a partially reflecting surface. By applying the technique to membrane proteins being fluorescently labelled at different residues, here we show that SIFA can measure not only the insertion depth of a dye inside a lipid bilayer, but also the position of a dye in solution near the surface. SIFA can therefore be used to study membrane proteins of various types.