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Review
. 2022 Mar 7;14(1):111-143.
doi: 10.1007/s12551-021-00913-7. eCollection 2022 Feb.

Model architectures for bacterial membranes

Ashley B Carey  1 , Alex Ashenden  1 , Ingo Köper  1
Affiliations
Review

Model architectures for bacterial membranes

Ashley B Carey et al. Biophys Rev. .

Abstract

The complex composition of bacterial membranes has a significant impact on the understanding of pathogen function and their development towards antibiotic resistance. In addition to the inherent complexity and biosafety risks of studying biological pathogen membranes, the continual rise of antibiotic resistance and its significant economical and clinical consequences has motivated the development of numerous in vitro model membrane systems with tuneable compositions, geometries, and sizes. Approaches discussed in this review include liposomes, solid-supported bilayers, and computational simulations which have been used to explore various processes including drug-membrane interactions, lipid-protein interactions, host-pathogen interactions, and structure-induced bacterial pathogenesis. The advantages, limitations, and applicable analytical tools of all architectures are summarised with a perspective for future research efforts in architectural improvement and elucidation of resistance development strategies and membrane-targeting antibiotic mechanisms.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12551-021-00913-7.

Keywords: Bacteria; Biophysics; Lipids; Membrane; Model membrane.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interestThe authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Schematic depiction of the key structural differences in the cell walls of GN and GP bacteria (used with permission from (Pajerski et al. 2019))
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Schematic representation of different sizes (top) and lamellar structures (bottom) of liposomes
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Schematic representation of various solid supported model membrane architectures. Please see text for details
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Schematic representation of different resolutions in molecular dynamics simulations of lipid membranes. All atom (AA) resolution explicitly considers all atoms. Coarse-grain (CG) resolution considers small atom groups and their associated hydrogens. Supra-CG resolution represents solvents implicitly and proteins and lipids as qualitative few-bead models. Implicit resolution further integrates out lipid molecules. (modified with permission from (Marrink et al. 2019))
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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