In the past few years there has been a growth in the use of nano-particles for stabilizing lipid membranes with embedded proteins. These bionanoparticles provide a solution to the challenging problem of membrane protein isolation by maintaining a lipid bilayer essential to protein integrity and activity. We have described the use of an amphipathic polymer (Poly(styrene-co-maleic acid); SMA) to produce discoidal nanoparticles that contain a lipid bilayer with embedded protein. However the structure of the nanoparticle itself has not yet been determined. This leaves a major gap in understanding how the SMA stabilizes the encapsulated bilayer and how the bilayer relates physically and structurally to an unecapsulated lipid bilayer. In this paper we address this issue by describing the structure of the SMA Lipid Particle (SMALP) using data from small angle neutron scattering (SANS), electron microscopy (EM), attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR). We show that the particle is disc shaped containing a polymer “bracelet” encircling the lipid bilayer. The structure and orientation of the individual components within the bilayer and polymer are determined showing that styrene moieties within SMA intercalate between the lipid acyl chains. The dimensions of the encapsulated bilayer are also determined and match those measured for a natural membrane. Taken together, the description of structure of the SMALP forms the foundation of future development and applications of SMALPs in membrane protein production and analysis.

Alzheimer's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder associated with the aberrant aggregation of the amyloid-β peptide. Although increasing evidence implicates cholesterol in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease, the detailed mechanistic link between this lipid molecule and the disease process remains to be fully established. To address this problem, we adopt a kinetics-based strategy that reveals a specific catalytic role of cholesterol in the aggregation of Aβ42 (the 42-residue form of the amyloid-β peptide). More specifically, we demonstrate that lipid membranes containing cholesterol promote Aβ42 aggregation by enhancing its primary nucleation rate by up to 20-fold through a heterogeneous nucleation pathway. We further show that this process occurs as a result of cooperativity in the interaction of multiple cholesterol molecules with Aβ42. These results identify a specific microscopic pathway by which cholesterol dramatically enhances the onset of Aβ42 aggregation, thereby helping rationalize the link between Alzheimer's disease and the impairment of cholesterol homeostasis.

α-Synuclein is a membrane-interacting protein involved in Parkinson’s disease. Here we have investigated the co-association of α-synuclein and lipids from ganglioside-containing model membranes. Our study relies on the reported importance of ganglioside lipids, which are found in high amounts in neurons and exosomes, on cell-to-cell prion-like transmission of misfolded α-synuclein. Samples taken along various stages of the aggregation process were imaged using cryogenic transmission electron microscopy, and the composition of samples corresponding to the final state analyzed using NMR spectroscopy. The combined data shows that α-synuclein co-assembles with lipids from the ganglioside (GM1)-containing model membranes. The lipid-protein samples observed during the aggregation process contain non-vesicular objects not present at the final stage, thus capturing the co-existence of species under non-equilibrium conditions. A range of different lipid-protein co-assemblies are observed during the time course of the reaction and some of these appear to be transient assemblies that evolve into other co-aggregates over time. At the end of the aggregation reaction, the samples become more homogeneous, showing thin fibrillar structures heavily decorated with small vesicles. From the NMR analysis, we conclude that the ratio of GM1 to phosphatidyl choline (PC) in the supernatant of the co-aggregated samples is significantly reduced compared to the GM1/PC ratio of the lipid dispersion from which these samples were derived. Taken together, this indicates a selective uptake of GM1 into the fibrillar aggregates and removal of GM1-rich objects from the solution.

Carbon nanoparticles with phenylsulfonate negative surface functionality (Emperor 2000, Cabot Corp.) are coated with positive chitosan followed by hydrothermal carbonization to give highly pH-responsive core-shell nanocarbon composite materials. With optimised core-shell ratio (resulting in an average shell thickness of ca. 4 nm, estimated from SANS data) modified electrodes exhibit highly pH-sensitive resistance, capacitance, and Faradaic electron transfer responses (solution based, covalently bound, or hydrothermally embedded). A shell "double layer exclusion" mechanism is discussed to explain the observed pH switching effects. Based on this mechanism, a broader range of future applications of responsive core-shell nanoparticles are envisaged.

The dense accumulation of α-Synuclein fibrils in neurons is considered to be strongly associated with Parkinson’s disease. These intracellular inclusions, called Lewy bodies, also contain significant amounts of lipids. To better understand such accumulations, it should be important to study α-Synuclein fibril formation under conditions where the fibrils lump together, mimicking what is observed in Lewy bodies. In the present study, we have therefore investigated the overall structural arrangements of α-synuclein fibrils, formed under mildly acidic conditions, pH = 5.5, in pure buffer or in the presence of various model membrane systems, by means of small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). At this pH, α-synuclein fibrils are colloidally unstable and aggregate further into dense clusters. SANS intensities show a power law dependence on the scattering vector, q, indicating that the clusters can be described as mass fractal aggregates. The experimentally observed fractal dimension was d = 2.6 ± 0.3. We further show that this fractal dimension can be reproduced using a simple model of rigid-rod clusters. The effect of dominatingly attractive fibril-fibril interactions is discussed within the context of fibril clustering in Lewy body formation.