The influence of fusion peptides FLAG of Dengue virus and HA of Influenza H1N1 in model membranes

• Grant number: 13/23096-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: February 01, 2014
• End date: January 31, 2017
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Biophysics - Molecular Biophysics
• Principal Investigator: Karin Do Amaral Riske
• Grantee: Thaís Fernandes Schmidt
• Host Institution: Escola Paulista de Medicina (EPM). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus São Paulo. São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 15/10057-5 - Influence of dengue fusion peptide in Langmuir monolayers and model bilayers, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

Lipid vesicles have been widely used to study aspects in organized biological events such as interactions of biomolecules for clinical interests into membranes. The interaction of membrane fusion peptides with lipid bilayer aims to understand the relationship between the target molecule and the membrane during the fusion of biological membranes via fusion peptides present in viruses. Membrane fusion peptides are part of virus, serving as a gateway to the virus access into the cell membrane. In particular, these peptides have higher affinity to anionic membranes and achieving lipid bilayers mainly composed by negatively charged lipids has extreme importance to be able monitoring the proceedings via fusion peptides. In this project, our focus is the study of physicochemical aspects of lipid bilayers fusion of different lipid compositions with membrane fusion peptides of Dengue virus (FLAG) and influenza (HA). A new growing method of giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) by PVA(polyvinyl alcohol) swelling will be employed, obtaining GUVs composed exclusively of charged lipids. In addition, we use techniques such as optical microscopy in phase contrast mode and fluorescence, isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), dynamic light scattering (DLS), turbidity and fluorescence spectroscopy in order to track and monitor the effect of membrane fusion not only between GUVs but also between large (LUVs) and giant (GUVs) unilamellar vesicles.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

SCHMIDT, THAIS F.; RISKE, KARIN A.; CASELI, LUCIANO; SALESSE, CHRISTIAN. Dengue fusion peptide in Langmuir monolayers: A binding parameter study. Biophysical Chemistry, v. 271, APR 2021. (13/23096-3, 15/10057-5)