When Physics Takes Over: BAR Proteins and Membrane Curvature.

Mijo Simunovic, Gregory A Voth, Andrew Callan-Jones, Patricia Bassereau

Trends in cell biology 2015 Dec

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Cell membranes become highly curved during membrane trafficking, cytokinesis, infection, immune response, or cell motion. Bin/amphiphysin/Rvs (BAR) domain proteins with their intrinsically curved and anisotropic shape are involved in many of these processes, but with a large spectrum of modes of action. In vitro experiments and multiscale computer simulations have contributed in identifying a minimal set of physical parameters, namely protein density on the membrane, membrane tension, and membrane shape, that control how bound BAR domain proteins behave on the membrane. In this review, we summarize the multifaceted coupling of BAR proteins to membrane mechanics and propose a simple phase diagram that recapitulates the effects of these parameters. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Citation

Mijo Simunovic, Gregory A Voth, Andrew Callan-Jones, Patricia Bassereau. When Physics Takes Over: BAR Proteins and Membrane Curvature. Trends in cell biology. 2015 Dec;25(12):780-92