Giant plasma membrane vesicle (GPMV) isolated from a flask of RBL-2H3 cells appear uniform at physiological temperatures and contain coexisting liquid-ordered and liquid-disordered phases at low temperatures. While a single GPMV transitions between these two states at a well-defined temperature, there is significant vesicle-to-vesicle heterogeneity in a single preparation of cells, and average transition temperatures can vary significantly between preparations. In this study, we explore how GPMV transition temperatures depend on growth conditions, and find that average transition temperatures are negatively correlated with average cell density over 15°C in transition temperature and nearly three orders of magnitude in average surface density. In addition, average transition temperatures are reduced by close to 10°C when GPMVs are isolated from cells starved of serum overnight, and elevated transition temperatures are restored when serum-starved cells are incubated in serum-containing media for 12h. We also investigated variation in transition temperature of GPMVs isolated from cells synchronized at the G1/S border through a double Thymidine block and find that average transition temperatures are systematically higher in GPMVs produced from G1 or M phase cells than in GPMVs prepared from S or G1 phase cells. Reduced miscibility transition temperatures are also observed in GPMVs prepared from cells treated with TRAIL to induce apoptosis or sphingomyelinase, and in some cases a gel phase is observed at temperatures above the miscibility transition in these vesicles. We conclude that at least some variability in GPMV transition temperature arises from variation in the local density of cells and asynchrony of the cell cycle. It is hypothesized that GPMV transition temperatures are a proxy for the magnitude of lipid-mediated membrane heterogeneity in intact cell plasma membranes at growth temperatures. If so, these results suggest that cells tune their plasma membrane composition in order to control the magnitude of membrane heterogeneity in response to different growth conditions.

Diverse molecules induce general anesthesia with potency strongly correlated with both their hydrophobicity and their effects on certain ion channels. We recently observed that several n-alcohol anesthetics inhibit heterogeneity in plasma-membrane-derived vesicles by lowering the critical temperature (Tc) for phase separation. Here, we exploit conditions that stabilize membrane heterogeneity to further test the correlation between the anesthetic potency of n-alcohols and effects on Tc. First, we show that hexadecanol acts oppositely to n-alcohol anesthetics on membrane mixing and antagonizes ethanol-induced anesthesia in a tadpole behavioral assay. Second, we show that two previously described "intoxication reversers" raise Tc and counter ethanol's effects in vesicles, mimicking the findings of previous electrophysiological and behavioral measurements. Third, we find that elevated hydrostatic pressure, long known to reverse anesthesia, also raises Tc in vesicles with a magnitude that counters the effect of butanol at relevant concentrations and pressures. Taken together, these results demonstrate that ΔTc predicts anesthetic potency for n-alcohols better than hydrophobicity in a range of contexts, supporting a mechanistic role for membrane heterogeneity in general anesthesia.

Many cell types undergo a hypoxic response in the presence of low oxygen, which can lead to transcriptional, metabolic, and structural changes within the cell. Many biophysical studies to probe the localization and dynamics of single fluorescently labeled molecules in live cells either require or benefit from low-oxygen conditions. In this study, we examine how low-oxygen conditions alter the mobility of a series of plasma membrane proteins with a range of anchoring motifs in HeLa cells at 37°C. Under high-oxygen conditions, diffusion of all proteins is heterogeneous and confined. When oxygen is reduced with an enzymatic oxygen-scavenging system for ≥ 15 min, diffusion rates increase by > 2-fold, motion becomes unconfined on the timescales and distance scales investigated, and distributions of diffusion coefficients are remarkably consistent with those expected from Brownian motion. More subtle changes in protein mobility are observed in several other laboratory cell lines examined under both high- and low-oxygen conditions. Morphological changes and actin remodeling are observed in HeLa cells placed in a low-oxygen environment for 30 min, but changes are less apparent in the other cell types investigated. This suggests that changes in actin structure are responsible for increased diffusion in hypoxic HeLa cells, although superresolution localization measurements in chemically fixed cells indicate that membrane proteins do not colocalize with F-actin under either experimental condition. These studies emphasize the importance of controls in single-molecule imaging measurements, and indicate that acute response to low oxygen in HeLa cells leads to dramatic changes in plasma membrane structure. It is possible that these changes are either a cause or consequence of phenotypic changes in solid tumor cells associated with increased drug resistance and malignancy.

No abstract