title: Protein machines and lipid assemblies: current views of cell membrane fusion.
abstract: Protein machines and lipid bilayers both play central roles in cell membrane fusion, a process crucial to life. Recent results provide clues to how both components function in fusion. Recent observations suggest a common mechanism by which very different fusion machines (from lipid-enveloped viruses and synaptic vesicles) may function to produce compartment-joining pores. This mechanism presumes that fusion proteins act as machines that use stored conformational energy to assemble closely juxtaposed lipid bilayers, bend these to form fusion-competent structures, stabilize unfavorable lipid structures and destabilize a committed intermediate to drive fusion pore formation.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, CB#7260, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7260, USA. uncbrl@med.unc.edu
authors.forename: B R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Lentz
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Malinin
authors.forename: M E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Haque
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Evans
mesh_terms: D008051:Lipid Bilayers; D008561:Membrane Fusion; D008565:Membrane Proteins / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D008051:Lipid Bilayers; D008565:Membrane Proteins